Baikonur Cosmodrome, Oct 11
The two-man US-Russian crew of a Soyuz spacecraft en route to the International Space Station was forced to make a dramatic emergency landing in Kazakhstan on Thursday when their rocket failed in mid-air.
US astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin landed safely without harm and rescue crews who raced to locate them on the Kazakh steppe quickly linked up with them, NASA, the US space agency, and Russia’s Roscosmos said.
It was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983 when a fire broke out at the base of the booster rocket while the crew was preparing for lift-off. The crew narrowly escaped before a large explosion.
Thursday’s problem occurred when the first and second stages of a booster rocket, launched from the Soviet-era cosmodrome of Baikonur in the central Asian country, were separating, triggering emergency systems soon after launch.
The Soyuz capsule carrying the two men then separated from the malfunctioning rocket and made what NASA called a steep ballistic descent to Earth with parachutes helping slow its speed. A cloud of sand billowed up as the capsule came down on the desert steppe.
Rescue crews then raced to the scene to retrieve them with reports of paratroopers parachuting to their landing spot.
The failure is a setback for the Russian space programme and the latest in a string of mishaps. Moscow immediately suspended all manned space launches, while Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said he had ordered a probe.
The International Space Station, a rare point of cooperation between Moscow and Washington, has been orbiting the Earth at roughly 28,000 km per hour since 1998 and will mark its 20th birthday in November The ISS is a habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit which is used to carry out scientific and space-related tests It can hold a crew of up to six persons. — Reuters
Moscow opens criminal probe over failed rocket launch
- Russian investigators said they had opened a criminal probe into a failed rocket launch. The probe would seek to determine whether safety regulations had been violated during construction, leading to massive damage
- US astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin were rescued without injuries in Kazakhstan following the emergency landing. An “anomaly” with the booster led to the voyage to the ISS being aborted in two minutes
- The Russian space industry has suffered a series of problems in recent years, including the loss of a number of satellites and cargo spacecraft
‘That was a quick flight’
- Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin (below) retained an enviable sang-froid as he realised while travelling at thousands of miles an hour that spacecraft would have to make an emergency landing
- “An accident with the booster, 2 minutes, 45 seconds. That was a quick flight,” he said in a calm voice in a streamed video
- Ovchinin and US astronaut Nick Hague had blasted off on a Soyuz rocket to the ISS, but around two minutes into the voyage, as the rocket was tearing through space at about 7,563 km/hour, three short beeps were heard, indicating an emergency situation
Space plans of US
For now, the US relies on Moscow to carry its astronauts to the International Space Station which was launched 20 years ago. NASA tentatively plans to send its first crew to the ISS using a SpaceX craft instead of a Soyuz next April
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