US & Russian Astronauts escape after emergency landing

US & Russian Astronauts escape after emergency landing the Soyuz rocket

A Russian cosmonaut and a US astronaut were forced to make an unprecedented emergency landing after their Russian Soyuz rocket malfunctioned while it was en route to the (ISS) International Space Station.

Nick Hague and Alexey Ovchinin reported a problem with the rocket’s booster soon after taking off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The Astronauts were forced into a “ballistic descent”, with their capsule touching ground a few 100 miles north of Baikonur.

Rescuers were at the landing spot to meet the Astronauts.

“The search and recovery teams are at present at the Soyuz spacecraft landing site and confirm that the two crew members… are in good state and are out of the capsule,” Nasa said.

Russia said it was putting on hold any further manned flights, and an enquiry into what went wrong had been initiated.

What happened to the Russian built Soyuz rocket?

It’s not completely clear yet. The launch seemed to be going efficiently, but some 90 seconds later Nasa, on its live stream, described that a problem appeared to have occurred with the booster rocket amid the first and second phases of separation.

Videotape from inside the capsule displayed the two men being shaken around at the moment that the fault occurred.

Nasa shortly subsequently said they were making a “ballistic descent”, denotating they descended at a considerable sharper rate than usual and would have been subject to bigger G-force.