Russian module suddenly fires thrusters after docking with space station



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A silvery gray module moves in the terrifying darkness of space.
Enlarge / The Russian “Nauka” module approaches the International Space Station.

NASA and Roscosmos flight controllers averted disaster Thursday after a large Russian module docked with the International Space Station and “inadvertently” began firing its thrusters.

The Russian “Nauka” module linked to the space station at 8:30 am CT (1:30 pm UTC) Houston local time, where NASA mission control is based. After that, Russian cosmonauts aboard the station began to prepare to open the hatches leading to Nauka, but at 11:34 a.m. Houston time Nauka unexpectedly began firing his motion thrusters.

Within minutes, the space station began to lose attitude control. This was a problem for several reasons. First of all, the station requires a certain attitude to maintain the signal with the geostationary satellites and to speak to mission control on the ground. In addition, the solar panels are positioned to collect energy according to this predetermined attitude.

Another concern is the G forces on the station structure. The various components of the vast space station were assembled in microgravity and designed to operate at zero G. So even small stresses on the vehicle can induce small cracks or other problems with the structure of the station.

For all of these reasons, the space station’s flight controllers in Houston and Moscow acted quickly after the station began to drift. Attitude control was completely lost at 11:42 a.m. and the space station service module engines were triggered. This was followed by a handover to the Russian Progress vehicle attached to the station, which began firing its thrusters. This standoff compensated for the activity of the Nauka module’s thruster, which eventually came to a halt after the fuel reserves were exhausted. At 12:29 p.m. Thursday, attitude control was restored. It lasted a good hour on the ground and in space.

” Yeah ! ” tweeted Zebulon Scoville, senior flight director in Houston during Thursday’s space station activities after his shift ends. “It was. It was. One day.”

Late Thursday afternoon, when NASA officials held a teleconference to brief reporters, the situation appeared to be under control. Officials, however, declined to comment on how serious the situation had become at mission control before the station returned to its correct attitude.

“Until you’ve exhausted all of your contingency plans, you don’t really start to worry,” said Joel Montalbano, NASA’s space station program manager. “And we didn’t do it today.”

Already, Montalbano said, a team of NASA engineers were studying the effect of Thursday’s loss of control on the structure of the station. Meanwhile, Russian engineers were assessing the health of the Nauka module. Both groups are expected to complete preliminary assessments by the end of Friday.

For NASA, that meant delaying the launch of a Starliner spacecraft scheduled for Friday. This long-awaited mission comes 19 months after a first test flight in December 2019 that went wrong due to software issues. Because Starliner was unable to dock with the space station on that first test flight, Boeing agreed to fly a second Starliner test mission before a crewed flight.

NASA has moved the Starliner launch to the earliest Tuesday at 1:20 p.m. EDT from Florida (5:20 p.m. UTC) on its Atlas V rocket. If the spacecraft is launched next Tuesday and all goes well, Starliner’s will dock at the space station next Wednesday.

The Russian Nauka module is seen attached to the International Space Station.
Enlarge / The Russian Nauka module is seen attached to the International Space Station.

Roscosmos

Meanwhile, the Russians will continue to work on integrating Nauka into the space station. This is an important module that includes the crew quarters, an airlock for science experiments and much more. With a mass of around 24 metric tons, it is around 20% larger than the station’s largest Russian segment, the Zvezda service module.

Nauka has had a long and, so far, inglorious history. Its launch eight days ago came after more than a decade of delays due to lack of funds and technical problems. Shortly after reaching orbit, Russia encountered difficulties with Nauka’s main propulsion system, and docking to the space station was delayed. After using emergency thrusters to increase his altitude and reach the station, Nauka docked. It is unclear what role propulsion system issues encountered shortly after launch may have played in Thursday’s difficulties.



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