NASA Reveals ISS Spun Out Of Control After Russian “Nauka” Module’s Jet Thrusters Fail

NASA has revealed new details of a disturbing incident that saw the International Space Station (ISS) spiral out of control by a 22-ton Russian research module.

The U.S. space agency said the ISS flipped over and was left upside down when Nauka’s jet thrusters failed ignition, just hours after docking with the space station.

When the incident happened last Thursday, NASA said it brought the ISS out of its attitude – its orientation relative to its direction of travel – 45 degrees, or a full eighth of a circle. .

However, the flight director who was in charge at the time has since revealed that it was “a little incorrectly reported” and that the actual figure was closer to 540 degrees.

This means that the ISS did 1.5 backflips when it was sent spinning and required a 180 degree forward flip to return to its original position.

The station’s position is essential for powering its solar panels.

If that were lost, the ISS would “decompose,” meaning it would come closer and closer to Earth before it crashed.

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Zebulon Scoville told The New York Times that it was actually his day off from NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston when the crash happened.

He had led the previous preparations for Nauka’s arrival and, out of curiosity, “decided to put on a tie and just go watch him. [the docking] from the observation gallery behind the control room ”.

Nauka, which is designed to serve as a research laboratory, storage unit and airlock, docked at the ISS on Thursday at 9.29am EDT (2:29 pm BST).

The responsible flight director had several meetings that afternoon. Mr. Scoville was therefore asked if he would agree to step in to cover the second half of the shift.

But seconds after taking office, he declared that “the warning sign had come on”.

The US space agency said the seven crew members on board – two Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and an astronaut from France’s European space agency – had never been in immediate danger. .

However, Mr Scoville said it was the first time he had declared a “spaceship emergency” in his seven years as a NASA flight director.

“You get about a half-breath of ‘Oh, dammit, what now? “And then you push that down and you solve the problem,” he said.

The incident began about three hours after Nauka hooked up to the ISS, as mission controllers in Moscow were performing post-docking “reconfiguration” procedures.

The Nauka jets inexplicably restarted, bringing the entire station out of its normal flying position about 250 miles above Earth, triggering a “tug of war” between the two modules as NASA struggled to regain control. ISS control.

The space station backfliped at a speed of 0.56 degrees per second when the rear section was pulled down by the Russian module on its belly.

An unexpected drift in the station’s orientation was first detected by automated ground sensors, followed 15 minutes later by a “loss of attitude control” that lasted just over 45 minutes, according to Joel. Montalbano, head of the NASA space station program.

Russian specialists were unable to stop Nauka’s thrusters and therefore attempted to counter the momentum by firing thrusters at both the Zvezda service module and a Progress freighter docked at the station.

For unknown reasons, the Nauka engines eventually shut down – possibly because they ran out of fuel – before the ISS was stabilized and its orientation restored by activating thrusters on another module on the platform. shape in orbit.

Communication with the astronauts was lost for several minutes on two occasions during the disruption, but “there was no immediate danger to the crew,” who “really felt no movement,” said said Montalbano.

Had the situation become dangerous enough to require an evacuation, the crew could have escaped in a SpaceX capsule still parked at the outpost and designed to act as a “lifeboat” if necessary.

Explaining the cause of the problem, Russian space agency Roscosmos said last Friday that there had been a software glitch on Nauka, and as a result, “a direct command was given to fire the engines from the module.”

A NASA spokesperson said the 45-degree figure was reported while the drama was still unfolding and the true 540-degree value was only confirmed after post-incident analysis.

The malfunction forced NASA to postpone the planned launch of Boeing’s new CST-100 Starliner on a highly anticipated unmanned test flight to the ISS until August 3, before a technical glitch pushed it back until today.

The Starliner, which will carry up to seven passengers to and from low Earth orbit, was scheduled to take off on top of an Atlas V rocket on July 30 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.