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Fragment of faulty Soyuz rocket found in Kazakhstan

Kazakh specialists have found a fragment of the faulty Soyuz-FG carrier rocket 40 km from the city of Zhezkazgan

ASTANA, October 12. /TASS/. Kazakh specialists have found a fragment of the faulty Soyuz-FG carrier rocket 40 km from the city of Zhezkazgan in the Karaganda Region, spokesman for the Emergencies Committee of Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry Nursultan Nurakhmetov told TASS on Friday.

"Following the results of the search measures, the Emergencies Committee personnel have found a fragment of the nose fairing’s flap 40 km from the city of Zhezkazgan. The fragment has been handed over to Roscosmos [Russian space agency] specialists. The radioactive and chemical situation at the fall site is normal and there are no victims or persons hurt by the accident. The fragment was discovered yesterday evening," Nurakhmetov said.

A Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with a manned Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday. The carrier rocket with the manned spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 11:40 a.m. Moscow time.

The manned spacecraft carried Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin (the commander of the Soyuz MS-10) and NASA astronaut Nick Hague.

The Soyuz booster aborted after its launch, after which the crew switched to the mode of a ballistic descent. The manned Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft landed in the Kazakh steppe.

As the press office of Russia’s Central Military District reported, rescuers recovered the crew from the descent capsule and the crew members are in good condition.

This is the first emergency with this type of carrier rockets over the past 35 years.