American astronaut finally makes it into space after aborted launch last year
A Russian spacecraft transporting NASA astronaut Nick Hague to the International Space Station launched flawlessly Thursday — no small feat given the aborted launch of a different spacecraft he was aboard last year.
Strapped into the Russian Soyuz on Thursday alongside Hague were Russia’s Alexey Ovchinin and NASA’s Christina Hammock Koch.
The three were expected to reach the space station Thursday night and be greeted by the three astronauts living on the orbiting laboratory, including NASA’s Anne McClain.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine offered a congratulations to the crew, particularly Hague, via Twitter on Thursday.
“So proud of Nick Hague for persevering through last October’s launch that didn’t go as planned,” Bridenstine wrote.
In October, Hague and Ovchinin were robbed of their chance to live on the space station after the Soyuz transporting them there had to make an emergency landing because a rocket booster failed.
Of Koch joining the team this time around, Hague said: “We’re stronger together. We’re fortunate to have her as part of the crew.”
NASA has relied on Russia to transport its astronauts to the space station since 2011, when the space shuttle program was shuttered. Commercial vehicles being built by SpaceX and Boeing are meant to alleviate that reliance, but those programs are behind schedule.
Earlier this month, however, SpaceX successfully completed a test flight of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, sending it to the space station and back without humans on board.
It was the first flight of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and SpaceX officials hope to launch a crewed mission to the space station in July.
Boeing’s uncrewed test flight is set for April, with a crewed flight planned in August.
The October abort was Russia’s first in 35 years and many officials deemed it a success: Hague and Ovchinin were safe and in good condition.
Some space experts, however, questioned whether Russia’s space program was up to snuff — especially because the aborted launch was preceded by the discovery of an air leakcausing hole in a different Soyuz docked to the space station in late August.
Russian officials in November announced that the failed launch was the result of a malfunctioning sensor that caused the first and second stages of the rocket launching the Soyuz to collide, breaking the second stage and forcing an emergency landing.
The sensor was damaged, Russian officials said, during the rocket’s assembly in Kazakhstan.
The cause of the hole is unknown. Gary Jordan, a spokesman at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said Thursday that Russia hadn’t released any investigation findings.
Hague and Koch are members of the 2013 astronaut class. On March 29, Koch and McClain will take part in the first all-female spacewalk in NASA’s history. They will make upgrades to the station.