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Flight controllers regained control of the International Space Station (ISS) after it was deflected by a newly arrived Russian research module.
Thursday’s incident saw the Nauka Multi-Purpose Module’s jet thrusters inadvertently fire about three hours after it latched onto the orbiting outpost, briefly knocking it out of control, officials said. the US space agency NASA.
This took place as mission controllers in Moscow were performing post-docking “reconfiguration” procedures, according to NASA.
The module’s jets inexplicably restarted, causing the entire ISS to pitch out of its normal flight position some 400 km (250 miles) above Earth. In response, the mission’s flight director declared a “space emergency,” NASA officials said.
But the seven crew members on board – two Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a French astronaut from the European Space Agency – were never in immediate danger, according to NASA.
‘Tug of war’
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, said to reporters Joel Montalbano, head of the NASA space station program.
Ground flight crews successfully restored the ISS’s orientation by activating thrusters on another orbiting platform module, NASA officials said.
In its television coverage of the incident, the Russian news agency RIA quoted NASA specialists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, describing the struggle to regain control of the space station as “gunfire. rope “between the two modules.
Positioning of the station is essential for obtaining energy from solar panels and communications.
At the height of the incident, the ISS was misaligning at a speed of about half a degree per second, Montalbano said.
The Nauka engines were eventually turned off, the space station was stabilized, and its orientation was restored to where it started.
Communication with the crew was lost for several minutes on two occasions during the disruption, Montalbano said, but those on board “really didn’t feel any movement.”
If the situation had become so dangerous that it required evacuating personnel, the crew could have escaped in a SpaceX crew capsule still parked at the outpost and designed to serve as a “lifeboat.” if necessary, said Steve Stich, director of the NASA commercial crew. program.
Montalbano said there was no immediate sign of damage to the space station after the incident. The flight correction maneuvers used more propellant reserves than desired, “but I wouldn’t worry,” he said.
Set of bugs
The cause of the malfunctioning thrusters on the Nauka module, delivered by Russian space agency Roscosmos, remains to be determined, NASA officials said.
But Roscosmos attributed Thursday’s post-docking problem to the Nauka’s engines having to run on residual fuel in the craft, TASS news agency reported.
After launching last week from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the 22-ton Nauka module, named after the Russian word for “science,” experienced a series of issues that raised fears that the docking procedure could fail. runs smoothly.
Its launch had already been delayed several times due to technical problems. It was originally planned to go up in 2007.
The Nauka module is designed to serve as a research laboratory, storage unit and airlock that will enhance Russia’s capabilities aboard the ISS.
This is the first new compartment for the Russian segment of the station since 2010. On Monday, one of the oldest Russian units, the Pirs spacewalk compartment, detached from the space station to free up some room for the new lab.
Nauka will require numerous maneuvers, including up to 11 spacewalks starting in early September, to prepare it for operation.
The malfunction prompted NASA to postpone its planned launch of Boeing’s new CST-100 Starliner capsule to at least August 3 during a much-anticipated unmanned test flight to the space station.
The Starliner was scheduled to take off on top of an Atlas V rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday.
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