Soyuz rocket forced to make emergency landing after being hit by engine problem

Booster rockets carrying a Soyuz spacecraft with two astronauts on board bound for the ISS failed in mid-air.

Russia's Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying the members of the International Space Station (ISS) expedition 57/58. Picture: AFP

Booster rockets carrying a Soyuz spacecraft with a Russian and an American astronaut on board bound for the International Space Station failed in mid-air, forcing the crew to make an emergency landing last night.

There were tense scenes in NASA’s Houston mission control centre as confirmation was sought from Russian officials of the pair’s condition.

Astronaut Nick Hague of NASA and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos launched at 3:40am central US time in a Soyuz rocket.

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 two crew members were “alive and set to land in Kazakhstan”, Russian media reported shortly before a NASA spokeswoman said the pair were in “good condition”.

U.S. astronaut Nick Hague, right and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. Picture: AP

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

Hague’s children had been anticipating the launch.

“The 11-year-old is very excited and the seven-year-old is a little nervous. But he definitely wants to see his dad float in space. So he thinks that’s cool. He is definitely into superheroes,” his wife Catie Hague said.

A NASA TV spokeswoman said the rocket encountered an issue and moved to “contingency mode”.

It then entered a “ballistic descent” to reach Earth at a sharper angle than would normally be adopted and exposed the astronauts to greater G forces than are routine.

Rescue helicopters were due to take 90 minutes to reach the pair.

The Soyuz spacecraft was due to dock at the International Space Station six hours later.

It was the first space mission for Hague.