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BOULDER – When US astronaut Nick Hague and his Russian partner boarded their Soyuz rocket, they did not know what was going to happen in Boulder.
"Whenever something goes wrong in space, you feel it," said Phil Larson. "This will have repercussions on the entire industry."
Larson is Assistant Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is also a former SpaceX scientist and has served as space and innovation advisor to President Barack Obama.
He said the rocket was approaching the edge of space, something was never happening.
"About two minutes after the start of the flight, so they were high enough, something that went wrong with the rocket booster caused the separation of the space shuttle," said Larson.
The emergency protocols aborted the two passengers and sent them back to Earth in what NASA calls a "ballistic descent" up to seven times the force of gravity.
"Just like a fighter pilot has the ejection seat, it was somehow ejecting the rocket probe," Larson said.
The Hague and cosmonaut Alexy Ovchinin managed to bring him down. Larson said the event could have an impact on Colorado's efforts to send Americans back into space aboard US rockets.
"The kind of successful accident of today shows the importance of regaining that ability here and having multiple forms of entering the space" said Larson.
The Hague and Ovchinine have been reunited with their families. Hague is from Kansas, but he graduated from the Air Force Academy of Colorado Springs.
"Although it was a bad day," Ovchinin said. "It was a bit of a bad day, the rocket did not work, but the abortion systems in place worked."
© 2018 KUSA-TV
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