Astronauts safe after booster failure on Soyuz

Rocket carrying space station crew fails in mid air, crew safe
Thomson Reuters
BY SHAMIL ZHUMATOV
Oct 11th 2018

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan, Oct 11 (Reuters) - A booster rocket carrying a Soyuz spacecraft with a Russian and U.S. astronaut on board headed for the International Space Station failed mid-air on Thursday, forcing the crew to make an emergency landing.

The rocket was carrying U.S. astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin. Footage from inside the Soyuz showed the two men being shaken around at the moment the failure occurred, with their arms and legs flailing.

The rocket was launched from the Soviet-era cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. A Reuters reporter who observed the launch from around 1 km away said it had gone smoothly in its initial stages and that the failure of the booster rockets must have occurred at higher altitude.
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