Space crew survives plunge to Earth after Russian rocket fails

The two-man crew, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and American Nick Hague, landed unharmed on the Kazakh desert steppe as rescue crews raced to reach them, according to the U.S. space agency NASA and Russia's space agency Roscosmos. The mishap occurred as the first and second stages of a Russian booster rocket separated shortly after the launch from Kazakhstan's Soviet-era cosmodrome of Baikonur. The Soyuz capsule carrying Ovchinin and Hague separated from the malfunctioning Russian rocket and plunged 31 miles (50 km) down to the surface, with parachutes helping to slow its speed, NASA said.