New Delhi: The two crew members of a Soyuz rocket had a narrow escape as the rocket made an emergency landing after an engine problem on lift-off to the International Space Station.


The two crew members aboard were US astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin.

The Russian space agency Roscosmsos informed in a tweet that the emergency rescue system worked and the vessel was able to land in Kazakhstan and the crew are alive.  It informed that the pair is in contact with ground control.

The failure gave another setback to the already troubled Russian space industry which over the past few years has suffered a series of problems including the loss of a number of satellites and other spacecraft.

The Soyuz MS-10 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the ISS at 4.40 a.m. on Thursday

NASA informed that there was an "issue with the booster" and the "crew is returning to Earth in a ballistic descent mode", which is a sharper angle of descent compared to normal. "Shortly after launch, there was an issue with the booster. Teams have confirmed the spacecraft separated from the booster and are in contact with the crew as the capsule returns in a ballistic decent mode, the agency said in a post.



Russian TV journalist  Michael R. Hartz‏ shared the video of the failure on Twitter. He wrote: "Scary video of the SoyuzMS10 malfunction. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin are reportedly in good condition after making an emergency landing