Putin bestows NASA astronaut with Russian state award for surviving botched space mission

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 11 October 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.

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’s been a long year...two safe landings, two emotional homecomings, one wild ride! pic.twitter.com/ZvZBVZ3vj9

— Nick Hague (@AstroHague) October 6, 2019

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.

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