International Space Station commander Alexander Gerst says he is grateful two astronauts are doing well after an exceedingly rare and harrowing launch abort ended their journey toward the orbiting laboratory.  Gerst, a European Space Agency astronaut from Germany, tweeted from orbit after the failed launch: “Spaceflight is hard. And we must keep trying for the benefit of humankind.”  He thanked the rescue force that arrived quickly to retrieve American Nick Hague and Russian Alexei Ovchinin from their capsule after an emergency landing. The capsule was jettisoned from a three-stage booster rocket that failed two minutes after liftoff.  Hague and Ovchinin were supposed to spend the next half year aboard the International Space Station.  Gerst wrote that the mishap shows “what an amazing vehicle the Soyuz is, to be able to save the crew from such a failure.”

A booster rocket failed less than two minutes after launching an American and a Russian toward the International Space Station on Thursday, forcing their emergency — but safe — landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.  It was the latest in a recent series of failures for the troubled Russian space program, which is used by the U.S. to carry its astronauts to the station.