Outer space

Two astronauts just survived a ‘ballistic descent’ in a Russian rocket. Here’s everything we know.

On Thursday at 4:40 a.m. Eastern time, NASA's Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin launched aboard the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The two men were set for a sixth-month stint on the International Space Station—Hague's first—but a booster problem during launch forced them to make a rare emergency landing. About two minutes into the ascent, Russian ground control could be heard referring to a "failure of the booster." 

The crew, both of whom are reportedly in "good condition," went into "ballistic descent mode," which NASA tweeted involved "a sharper angle of landing compared to normal." The capsule containing the astronauts successfully separated from the rocket booster and parachuted the ground, where rescue teams in helicopters rushed to meet them.