International Space Station thrown out of control by misfire of Russian Nauka space lab
- Newly arrived Russian science lab briefly knocks ISS out of position after firing thrusters
- Movements caused brief loss of attitude control but the space station suffered no damage
The International Space Station (ISS) was thrown briefly out of control on Thursday when jet thrusters of a newly arrived Russian research module inadvertently fired a few hours after it was docked to the orbiting outpost, Nasa officials said.
The seven crew members aboard – two Russian cosmonauts, three Nasa astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a European space agency astronaut from France – were never in any immediate danger, according to Nasa and Russian state-owned news agency RIA.
But the malfunction prompted Nasa to postpone until at least August 3 its planned launch of Boeing’s new CST-100 Starliner capsule on an uncrewed test flight to the space station. The Starliner had been set to blast off atop an Atlas V rocket on Friday from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Thursday’s mishap began about three hours after the multipurpose Nauka module had latched onto the space station. The module’s jets inexplicably restarted, causing the entire station to pitch out of its normal flight position some 400km (250 miles) above the Earth, US space agency officials said.
The “loss of attitudinal control” lasted for a little more than 45 minutes, until flight teams on the ground managed to restore the space station’s orientation by activating thrusters on another module of the orbiting platform, according to Joel Montalbano, manager of Nasa’ space station programme.