ISS mishap is a sign NASA’s security culture is slipping, warns former mission controller

The disaster nearly hit the International Space Station last week when a Russian module unexpectedly triggered its thrusters shortly after docking. Retired space engineer is now sounding the alarm, saying NASA’s security culture shows signs of decline and that an independent investigation is necessary.

James Oberg is not the type to hold back.

The retired “rocket scientist” and mission controller worked at NASA from 1975 to 1997, where he was an orbital rendezvous expert. His in-depth knowledge of the Russian and Chinese space programs has led him to testify before Congress on several occasions, and his 2002 book, Star orbits, exposed the gaps that existed in the United States.S.-Relationship with Russia while the ISS was under development.

Naturally, the recent incident with the ISS caught Oberg’s attention, prompting him to write a Guest post for the IEEE spectrum.

While the immediate cause of the incident is still being elucidated, there are worrying signs that NASA could repeat some of the failures that led to the loss of the Challenger and Colombia space shuttles and their crews, ”he wrote. “And because political pressures seem to be at the root of much of the problem, only an independent investigation with serious political clout can reverse any erosion of the security culture.”

Indeed, it is arguably the most serious incident on the International Space Station. On July 29, the Russian module Nauka successfully moored at the orbital outpost, and for a while everything looked fine. As cosmonauts worked to integrate the newly arrived module, however, the the thrusters started firing, reversing the space station at a speed of 0.5 degrees per second. No one knew this was happening until a flight controller on duty at NASA remark the changing orientation of the station. The ISS’s thrusters worked to counter the unexpected thrust, and eventually, after Nauka’s thrusters suddenly shut down, control was restored.

NASA insists that the astronauts aboard the ISS have never been in danger, but as Oberg writes: so happy that when he saw on external television cameras that solar panels and radiators were still in place. Oberg finds no humor in any of this, especially considering that this incident resulted in the very first declaration of a “spaceship emergency” in the station’s history.

The ISS appears to be doing fine, but the stresses caused by the unexpected rotation could have affected modules, support beams, solar panels, radiator panels and robotic arms. Yet the exact details of what happened that day are not yet fully known. The media have “portrayed teams of specialists manually directing in-vehicle systems into action, but the exact actions taken in response are still unclear – and were probably mostly if not fully automatic,” Oberg writes. That NASA initially reported a 45 degree rotation not the actual 540 degree rotation is not a good look, he argues.

As Oberg also points out, the space agency, instead of speaking critically about the incident, instead reminds everyone of the incredible that is the working relationship between NASA and Roscosmos.. The emphasis on maintaining good relations with Moscow — therefore, political — seems to impede security. But what also hinders security, he says, is, ironically enough, a dearth of serious incidents in recent history.

“The bureaucratic instinct to minimize the described potential severity of the event requires a cold-blooded assessment,” Oberg writes. “Unfortunately, from past experience, this state of mind of complacency and hope for the best is the result of a natural human mental drift that occurs when there are long periods of normalcy. related.” To which he adds: “The NASA team has experienced this same slow cultural rot of assuming security several times over the past decades, with hideous consequences. “

Oberg said a culture of convenience existed at NASA in the years leading up to 1986 Challenger disaster, a time when he worked at Mission Control. The team members had “noticed and started to voice concerns about growing neglect and even humorous reactions to occasional ‘silly mistakes’ to no avail,” Oberg writes. A similar “mental drift” set in at the end of the 1990s during U.S.-Russian operations on Mir and during the first flights of the ISS, he said.

NASA Headquarters, or some other senior office, should step in to “reverse the apparent new cultural drift”, berg writing. It requests an independent investigation into the incident to determine the exact cause and expose the decision-making that took place at NASA that allowed Nauka to dock, a module that Russia was unable to disarm in an emergency.

Like NASA, Roscosmos also played down the incident. Sergei Krikalev, the director of crewed space programs at Roscosmos, said that a investigation will be launched to assess the physical impact of the accident on the ISS, but the extent of this investigation is not known. It looks like NASA and Roscosmos are hoping to put this incident under the rug, but as Oberg points out, it should serve as a much needed wake-up call.call.