Astronaut who survived rocket failure to receive award

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday bestowed a prestigious state award for courage on Nick Hague, the U.S. astronaut who survived a botched space launch last year.

A Russian Soyuz rocket bound for the International Space Station malfunctioned two minutes after liftoff on Oct. 11, 2018, forcing its two-man crew of Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin to make an emergency landing.

They landed unscathed in the Kazakh steppe after plunging 31 miles (50 km) in a capsule with parachutes slowing their descent.

From only a few hundred miles up, you can see an entire state. The human footprint fades and the blue, and turquoise waters around Florida draw you in. Here is where we will launch ourselves to the Moon during #Artemis, as we continue to explore the mysteries of our universe. pic.twitter.com/TXv1pq0Mdi

— Nick Hague (@AstroHague) October 1, 2019

Almost a year after the accident, Putin awarded Hague the Order of Courage, according to a decree published on a government portal, noting the professionalism he had shown during the rocket failure.

It was not immediately clear whether or when Hague would receive his award at a ceremony.

Russian investigators have said the rocket failure was caused by a sensor that was damaged during assembly at the Soviet-era cosmodrome at Baikonur.

The eye of #HurricaneDorain. You can feel the power of the storm when you stare into its eye from above. Stay safe everyone! pic.twitter.com/yN3MGidY3N

— Nick Hague (@AstroHague) September 2, 2019

Hague last week returned to Earth having successfully made it to the International Space Station in a repeat launch in March this year.