Soyuz crew safely lands after Rocket launch failure, Commission opens probe

A carrier failure occurred during the launch of the Russian Soyuz MS-10 manned spacecraft from the Baikonur space center to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, which made the capsule with the crew return to Earth in a ballistic descent mode.

The crew safely landed in Kazakhstan and got in touch with rescue teams. Crew members, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague are in good condition.

The launch failure was announced during live stream by the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos.

According to a Sputnik source, the capsule with the spacecraft crew was jettisoned from the carrier automatically by the emergency system.

Russia's Central Military District announced that military paratroopers parachuted from an AN-26 aircraft to the scene, where the Soyuz MS-10 crew members were found after the failure of carrier rocket, to facilitate the evacuation.

Oleg Orlov, the director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, confirmed that the condition of the crew was assessed as good.

The program of manned and cargo launches to the ISS would be revised, with all Russian manned launches suspended until clarification of the causes.

"In connection with the incident, the Roscosmos emergency commission made the decision to suspend all launches of Soyuz-FG rockets, which are used to take astronauts to the ISS, until the causes are found out," the source said.

The source added that a launch scheduled for December could be similarly delayed.

Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos established an emergency commission after the launch incident.

"A state commission was formed by my decision to determine the cause of the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket accident. It has already begun work. Telemetry is being studied. Rescue services have been working from the first second of the accident. The Soyuz-MS spacecraft emergency rescue system worked properly. The crew was rescued," Rogozin wrote on Twitter.

Rogozin himself departed for the site of the emergency landing of the Soyuz crew.

Meanwhile, a source told Sputnik that the commission would carry out an inspection at Space Rocket Centre Progress where Soyuz-FG rocket was produced.

Commenting on the situation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that President Vladimir Putin would be provided with all the necessary information about the launch incident.

"Of course, the president will be provided with all the necessary information," Peskov told reporters.

He noted that, according to the information at his disposal, the safety systems and the crew of the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft worked properly.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov, in turn, said that preliminary data showed that the Soyuz carrier rocket failure took place when the first stage was separating from the second stage.

"The situation is certainly unpleasant, but, as you know, there have already been such cases in the history of astronautics. On the other hand, the efficiency of the emergency rescue system has been confirmed, which is very important," Borisov told reporters.

He said personnel changes in the Roscosmos State Space Corporation were possible once causes of the Soyuz accident and those guilty were established.