NASA Astronaut Describes Close Call Following Failed Launch

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Air Force Col. Nick Hague described the closest call of his career: His space capsule violently ripped from his damaged rocket shortly after liftoff, then with lights flashing and alarms sounding, plunged steeply back to Earth with punishing force.

Hague said he and his commander, Russian Alexei Ovchinin, were flung from side to side and shoved back hard into their seats, as the drama unfolded 50 kilometers (31 miles) above Kazakhstan last Thursday. One of the four strap-on boosters failed to separate properly two minutes into the flight to the International Space Station and apparently struck the core rocket stage, resulting instantaneously in a rare launch abort.

It was the first aborted launch for the Russians in 35 years and only the third in history. Like each one before, the rocket’s safety system kept the crew alive.

Hague — the first American to experience a launch abort like this — communicated in Russian throughout the more than half-hour ordeal.