Astronauts get a scare as space station accidentally loses orientation

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were scared earlier in the day when the orbiting space lab became disoriented after a new module unexpectedly triggered its thrusters shortly after docking. The crash took place at 11:45 am CT after the Russian Nauka module, which docked with the space station earlier in the day, engaged its propulsion system while on board the station. After the thrusters fired, the ISS changed its orientation 45 degrees according to a NASA spokesperson and the error was corrected when the Russian Zvezda module fired its thrusters to reorient the spacecraft. The NASA spokesperson also stressed that the station’s astronauts were not in danger at any time during the event and that the thruster fire stopped shortly after the crash.

Astronauts stay safe as International Space Station loses attitude due to misshapen thruster

NASA began sharing updates from the crash at 1:30 p.m. EDT today, with Space Agency Public Affairs Officer Rob Navas describing the event detailing that:

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Good afternoon from Mission Control in Houston and the International Space Station Flight Control Room to join our coverage after this morning’s rendezvous and docking of the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module to the International Space Station . The docking took place this morning at 8:29 a.m. Central Time, 9:29 a.m. Eastern Time. During the three hours following docking, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novi and Pyodre Duvidov of the Expedition 65 crew performed routine leak checks of the interface between the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module and the International Space Station and opened the Zvezda service hatch. module side of the docking interface and the Russian flight controllers as well as the two cosmonauts were in the process of integrating. Other dominant activities between the newly arrived MLM or the Nauka and Zvezda service module.

At 11:45 a.m. central time, the thrusters of the Nauka Multipurpose Lab Module began to fire inadvertently and unexpectedly. And that resulted in the International Space Station losing about 45 degrees of attitude. The crew was never in danger. The flight control team here in Houston immediately recognized the situation. The crew began to work on the recovery operations on board to regain the trim. The ISS Progress 78 freighter which is moored to the Poisk module on the zenith side of the Russian segment of the International Space Station was put into play by the Russian flight control team who reacted very quickly.

The Progress thrusters fired and the attitude has now been restored. Thus, the station is back in the normal attitude configuration while the Russian flight control team works on the procedures and considers how to stop and stop the firing of the thrusters of the multipurpose laboratory module. Initially, the Zvezda service module realized that we were losing attitude control and began to counterbalance the fire from the Nauka’s thrusters to begin the process of regaining attitude control which was then handed over to the freighter. ISS Progress 78. who has resumed work to regain attitude control.

There is no explanation at this point as to what precipitated the accidental thruster firing at the multipurpose lab module, but the Russian flight control team have indicated that when we return over the Russian ground stations in about 30 minutes they should be able to send commands to the multipurpose lab module to turn off those thrusters on the MLM and prevent any re-spawning of inadvertent thruster shots that reoccurred 45 minutes to 11 minutes ago. h 45 central time.

About an hour after the misfires started, Navias confirmed that they had stopped and the station had regained some attitude. In space flight terminology, the attitude of a spacecraft refers to its orientation relative to another body.

At the same time, Russian ground controllers began planning the reconfiguration of the Nauka’s propulsion system as the station passed over a Russian ground station. The new module is 43 feet long and weighs approximately 22 tons. The hiccups started as it was integrating with the ISS computers, and the cause of the event is unclear at this time. After the passage of the ground station was completed, Russian flight controllers successfully reconfigured the new module to avoid such misfires in the future.