On Thursday, the International Space Station (ISS) lost orientation control and left the configured position, following an incident with the Russian module ‘Nauka’, sent with materials for the construction of a new scientific laboratory.
The situation, which lasted for 47 minutes, came when the Russian module accidentally fired its thrusters after docking on Thursday, knocking the ERA out of its normal position.
Positioning the space station is critical for getting power from solar panels and for communications.
Communications with ground controllers were interrupted twice, for a few minutes.
Later, the US space agency NASA informed that the situation was resolved and that the ERA is stable and secure.
“We didn’t see any damage”, said Joel Montalbano, manager of the EEI, at a press conference, guaranteeing that “at no time” the crew was exposed to a possible danger.
The representative stated that the crew did not feel any movement or shake during the incident.
NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs added, in turn, that the ERA has never been spinning.
Because of this incident, NASA has already announced the postponement of the Boeing unmanned capsule test flight, which was scheduled for this Friday in Florida (United States).
It would be Boeing’s second attempt to get to EEI before putting crew on board, thus taking a big step towards getting into the commercial spaceflight business.
The ‘Nauka’ module, which weighs around 22 tonnes, arrived at the EEI on Thursday eight days after it departed the Russian cosmodrome at Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
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