Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Drink-driving rugby league star banned
2 crew hurtle down to earth Capsule drama at 31 miles up
TWO astronauts hurtled back down to earth yesterday in a capsule that had reached 3,000mph before the rocket failed at 31 miles up.
The Russian Soyuz MS-10 had blasted off carrying a Russian and an American to the International Space Station.
But 114 seconds later their capsule had to be jettisoned when the Soyuz booster went into emergency shutdown.
Amazingly, astronauts Alexey Ovchinin, 47, and Nick Hague, 43, survived the ordeal – and are said to be “in good condition”.
As they plummeted to the ground they experienced G-forces of around 6.7 – 4G can lead to blackout for pilots. Footage from in the capsule showed them being violently shaken seconds before the capsule was jettisoned.
Parachutes were eventually deployed as their capsule went into a “ballistic descent”, landing at a much sharper than normal angle, according to Nasa.
Paratroopers were dropped over the desert steppe crash area – 250 miles from the launch site – and the men were quickly picked up. Images of the lucky pair were released hours later and showed them eating a meal.
Russia has now suspended all manned space launches and an inquiry will try to determine whether safety regulations were violated during the rocket’s construction.
It had taken off for a six-hour journey from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the orbiting ISS.
The two astronauts were due to join three other ISS crew and then spend six months on the station.
Due to the aborted flight, the trio now aboard the ISS – a German, a Russian and an American – will be stuck there at least until January.
But Nasa ISS director Sam Scimemi played down fears for the trapped team.
He said: “We have resources well into next year for them.”
The malfunction of the Soyuz – one of the oldest current rocket designs – occurred around “staging”, where the craft ditches its empty boosters.
An emergency descent has been carried out once before, in 1975, when astronauts had to undergo a force of 21G.
Yesterday’s drama is the latest in a series of mishaps for Russia’s space programme which has had 13 technical failures since 2010. However the launch malfunction is thought to be the first for a Soyuz booster since 1983.
The craft is now the only one used to ferry crews to the ISS after the retirement of the US fleet.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov confirmed no manned missions would take place “until we believe the entire situation guarantees safety”.
He said the drama would not harm US relations, saying that America recognises it is a “hi-tech industry linked to risk”. Space co-operation is an area that has survived otherwise tense relations between Russia and the US.
ON CRASH PROBE
ENGLAND rugby league star Zak Hardaker got a 20month driving ban after an “amateurish attempt” to flee police while twice the drink-drive limit.
A court heard the Wigan Warriors player, 26, had drunk two gins and six pints when officers spotted him driving erratically.
He pulled into a cul-desac in Ponetfract, West Yorks, and fled with a pal.
When police quickly turned up at his home nearby, Hardaker initially denied driving but then “came to his senses”.
Leeds magistrates court heard he had been worried about leaving his golf clubs in the car overnight.
District judge Paul Currer told him: “You showed greater concern for your clubs than you did the safety of the public.”