1 . A rocket problem that forces astronauts to evacuate (撤退) may appear to be a plot straight out of a Hollywood movie. However, that is exactly what happened to Russian astronaut Alexey Ovchinin and American astronaut Nick Hague.     1    

The event happened shortly after the Soyuz rocket and its Soyuz MS-to space capsule (联盟号太空舱) carrying the astronauts took off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.     2    

The takeoff went off smoothly, but just 119 seconds later, officials from Russia’s space agency informed NASA the booster (助推器) had failed to separate from the capsule.     3     Instead, they were ordered to evacuate by separating the capsule and returning to Earth in what is known as a ballistic descent mode (弹道下降模式). The sharp drop is similar to free-falling from the skies and subjects astronauts to high levels of g-force.

    4     They appeared to be in excellent condition when they crash-landed about 20 kilometers east of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, just 34 minutes after they stopped the task. Upon arrival, they were quickly found by the rescue team from Baikonur Cosmodrome and taken to the hospital for a quick check-up to ensure they had not suffered any injuries during their rough ride back to Earth.

It will take a few weeks for experts to determine what caused the problem of the usually reliable Soyuz rocket.     5     Hague, who was on his way to the space station for the first time later joked, “I imagined that my first trip to outer space was going to be a memorable one. I didn’t expect it to be quite this memorable.”