The space station rolled 540 degrees

The upheaval on the International Space Station a week ago was much more dramatic than first revealed and there is now a call for an independent investigation into the incident. As we reported last week, the ISS lost its normal attitude when a Russian module that had just docked at the station activated one of its thrusters. NASA officials initially said the incident pushed the ISS into a 45-degree tilt angle, but they have since corrected that. The collection of football-field-sized modules connected by a spindly structure actually rolled 540 degrees before the station’s systems fired thrusters (ironically from another Russian structure docked at the ISS) to counter the wandering maneuver. For the first time in the history of the program, an emergency has been declared.

To straighten out the fragile collection of coins, the team had to back it up 180 degrees. The drama forced the cancellation of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule as the ISS crew searched for potential damage. This process continues as a parade of spaceships line up to dock at the station over the next several weeks, including the Starliner. So far, NASA has issued statements claiming that the link between the US and Russian space programs remains strong and that the two agencies will sort it all out. A former NASA mission control scientist who now works as a space consultant for a television network says a full independent investigation is warranted. In an editorial in IEEE Spectrum, James Oberg said the two organizations’ statements point to a time when the security culture slipped at NASA in favor of political considerations. 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.”