Russian Soyuz-2 Successfully Launches
Successful Launch of the Soyuz-2 Launch Vehicle From the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, ROSCOSMOS
“On Thursday, October 25, at 0315 hours Moscow time, the State Space Test Center Plesetsk in the Arkhangelsk Region was successfully launched by the Soyuz-2.1b medium-class launch vehicle with a spacecraft in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry.”
Was this the same configuration as a manned Soyuz launch vehicle/spacecraft uses? If so, that is the first of the planned non-crewed launches the Russians have said they will do before returning to manned flights.
It seems unlikely that the first stage configuration would be different. However if the failed component was a pyrobolt the failures are sporadic and not ruled out be a sucessfull launch. A better approach would be an analysis of the incident followed by statistical proces cntrol for the failed component, i.e. testing a percentage, initially high, of the components by non-destructive methods and by actual firing.