A Russian Soyuz capsule landed nearly 500 kilometres off course on Saturday.

Most reports say American Peggy Whitson, Ukrainian Yuri Malenchenko and Korean So-yeon Yi were unhurt. However the Korea Times later reported that Yi had been taken to hospital to recover.

The Soyuz seems to have come into Earth’s atmosphere at a steeper-than-planned angle, a so-called ballistic descent. According to Space.com such ballistic descents are not unknown. Soyuz experienced similar problems before, for example in last year and in 2003. A number of reports note that this would have subjected the astronauts to higher than planned G-forces and caused the capsule to land way off target (eg PA, NASA press release).

It also meant it took rescuers a while to get to the crash site, where a Reuters cameraman described seeing a smoking capsule with its side 30 cm deep in the earth and its parachute aflame.

“Don’t be late next time, please,” Yi said (Korea Times).

Exactly what caused this problem, and the similar previous problems, is not entirely clear. With all the money spent on space you’d think they could land on target. It’s not exactly rocket science. Oh, wait…

Image: the Soyuz shortly after undocking / NASA TV