Russian module mishap destabilises International Space Station - BBC News
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The International Space Station (ISS) was destabilised after engines of a newly-arrived Russian module inadvertently fired up, officials say.
"Mission control teams corrected the action and all systems are operating normally," US space agency Nasa said.
This was done by activating thrusters on another module of the ISS. An investigation is now under way.
US and Russian officials said that the seven crew members aboard the space station were never in any danger.
The malfunction happened several hours after Nauka module docked with the ISS on Thursday, following an eight-day flight.
Nasa tweeted that "the module's thrusters started firing at 12:45pm ET (16:45 GMT) inadvertently and unexpectedly, moving the station 45 degrees out of attitude".
It added that "recovery operations have regained attitude" and that "the station is back in attitude control and is in good shape".
Communications with the ISS crew were lost for several minutes during the incident. However. they were "really didn't feel any movement" as the space station pitched at half-a-degree a second.
The mishap forced Nasa and Boeing to push back an uncrewed test flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft to the ISS from 30 July to at least 3 August.
The 13m-long, 20-tonne Nauka was earlier attached to the rear of the orbiting platform, linking up with the other major Russian segments on the station.
The module should have launched in 2007, but the vessel suffered repeated slips in schedule, in part because of budget difficulties but also because engineers encountered a raft of technical problems during development.
Even after it launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan a week ago, it experienced propulsion issues that required workarounds from controllers in Moscow.
In the end, however, it docked with the station on the planned date.
The new module will result in a significant boost in habitable volume for the ISS, raising it by 70 cubic metres.
Cosmonauts will use the extra space to conduct experiments and to store cargo. They'll also use it as a rest area, and it has another toilet for crew to use on the station.
image copyrightESAimage caption
In addition, the module carries with it a large robotic arm (ERA) supplied by the European Space Agency (Esa).
This 11m-long device will be able to operate all around the Russian end of the ISS. With the aid of an "elbow" joint, it will shift position by moving hand over hand.
Nauka's installation comes just as Russia has been questioning its future role in the ISS project.
Moscow officials recently warned about the more-than-20-year age of some of their on-orbit hardware and intimated the country could pull out of the station in 2025. And Russia has shown little interest in joining the US-led lunar platform, known as the Gateway, which will be assembled later this decade.
Related Topics
- Russia
- International Space Station
- Space exploration
- Nasa
- European Space Agency
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Probably faulty control components made in a Chinese rubber dog shit factory.
Ha Ha - China created the world's fastest quantum computer, the most complex and biggest super-fast train network, the largest most powerful radio telescope, brought back rocks from the moon and landed on Mars using components from its "rubber dog shit factories".
And yet, they have to steal technology from other countries to keep up ...... go figure ......
Don't worry, your government is doing everything it possibly can to prevent China from progressing, even desperately begging other countries to join it in containing China out of fear of being surpassed.
We don't have to steal China's marbles but if did we'd find many of them were already our marbles in the first place.
So there you go ....
Have you ever seen a list of things invented in China that Americans make use of?
I have and i'm pretty sure any Patents have run out on Gunpowder, Printing and the Compass.
Give me a call when the US steals some Chinese intellectual property newer than fireworks and then we can talk.
Maybe so, aren't you lucky. Bet you even eat with a fork. However, since NASA was forbidden to have any connection or contact whatsoever with the Chinese, how do you explain China's accomplishments in space, since they couldn't possibly have stolen such technology from the USA?
China's space program likely has some serious underpinnings that were lifted from foreign space programs. That is China's modus operendi. The opposite is definitely not true for NASA.
But hey, i suppose it's better late than never getting to space for such an old culture .....
It has some serious underpinnings? Are you a space technician and have you been to China to observe their activities? And what countries do you figure they stole space technology from to have accomplished what they have, since they're totally blocked from NASA?
Oh, and yah, they caught up awful fast, didn't they. Let's see where they go from here.
That's what happens when you copy the smart kids paper.
You get the same grade without doing the work required to get there.
Yah ... you betcha!
Gee, you know so much. Did you teach Albert Einstein math and physics? How come you haven't got the Nobel yet?
Einstein had little to do with the development of modern space travel. Now if you had said Goddard, Von Braun or Tsiolkovsky you would be more on point.
That said I find your defense of China's well known and well published espionage campaigns fascinating.
Is your supposition that they don't currently have or never have employed a robust doctrine of industrial/scientific espionage?
This reminded me of something that was happening during the Clinton years. We have a friend who was frequenting machine shop auctions and would come across 5 & 6 axis CNC milling centers and he and others were being outbid by the Chinese reps and the purchased machines were leaving the US. This was not allowed previously but the Clinton administration gave assurances that the Chinese were just buying scrap metal, because the policy was that the motherboards were to be removed before the machines left for China, so problem solved.
China would get the machines and then order the motherboards from Taiwan, so problem solved.
" Vladimir Solovyov, flight director of the space station's Russian segment, blamed the incident on a "short-term software failure." In a statement released by the Russian space agency Roscosmos on Friday, Solovyov said that because of the failure, a direct command to turn on the lab's engines was mistakenly implemented." AP
The Russians lie about a lot of things, I doubt they are lying about this.
Probably because they know who their audience is. Can't really expect a group of rocket scientists to buy "My dog ate it..."
Was the guy in charge of the fuel pods named "Lev Andropov" by any chance?