Soyuz rocket crew survive emergency landing

MOSCOW: The twoman crew of a Soyuz rocket made a successful emergency landing yesterday after an engine problem on liftoff to the International Space Station, in a major setback for the beleaguered Russian space industry.

US astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin were rescued without injuries in Kazakhstan.

“The emergency rescue system worked, the vessel was able to land in Kazakhstan... the crew are alive,” the Russian space agency Roscosmos said in a tweet. The pair are in contact with ground control, the space agency said.

Over the past few years the Russian space industry has suffered a series of problems including the loss of a number of satellites and other spacecraft.

The rocket was launched was from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

“The launch had a problem with the booster (rocket) a few seconds after the first stage separation and we can confirm now that the crew has started to go into ballistic descent mode,” the voiceover on a Nasa livestream from mission control in Houston said.

The Nasa commentator later said the crew was in good condition and communicating with rescue workers after landing east of the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan.

The descent was sharper than usual meaning the crew was subjected to a greater Gforce, but they have been prepared for this scenario in training, the commentator said.

The Kremlin confirmed the men had survived. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists: “Thank God the cosmonauts are alive”.