Q&A with Guido Levrini, ESA’s manager of the Copernicus space segment

Russian investigators believe a malfunction during separation of the Soyuz rocket’s four liquid-fueled first stage boosters two minutes after liftoff from Kazakhstan led to an emergency landing of a two-man crew heading for the International Space Station, officials said Friday.

A Soyuz rocket carrying Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and veteran NASA astronaut Kate Rubins blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:45 a.m. EDT (0545 GMT) Wednesday. The Soyuz crew took off on a three-hour express trip to the International Space Station that culminated in a docking at 4:48 a.m. EDT (0848 GMT).

European technicians working at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan have bolted an Italian-built Mars lander to its mothership ahead of a March 14 launch toward the red planet.