A Russian science lab briefly knocked the International Space Station (ISS) out of position on Thursday when its jet thrusters got fired accidentally. It went on for a few hours after it landed at the orbiting outpost, the NASA officials informed. The stations' position is an important factor for extracting power from the solar panels and or communications. Ground communications with the ground controllers also got smacked twice for minutes.
Fight controllers recovered control utilising thrusters on other Russian parts at the station to right the ship, which is stable and protected now, said NASA.
There is no damage noticed yet, said Space station program manager Joel Montalbano in a late afternoon press conference. “There was no immediate danger at any time to the crew.”
According to NASA and Russian state-owned news agency RIA, there was no immediate danger to the seven crew members aboard - two Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a European space agency astronaut from France.
This breakdown made NASA postpone until August 3 on its launch of Boeing's new CST-100 Starliner capsule on the most awaited uncrewed test flight to the space station. The Starliner capsule was set to fly on top of an Atlas V rocket on Friday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
As per NASA, the Thursday misfortune happened about three hours after the multipurpose Nauka module got locked onto the space station, after the mission controllers in Moscow were conducting some post-docking "reconfiguration" modes.
The modules’’ jet restarted making the entire station go back to its normal flight position about 250 miles above the earth. This made the flight director announce a "spacecraft emergency," said officials from the U.S. space agency.
A sudden rise in the station's orientation was first found by automated ground sensors, which was then followed by 15 minutes "loss of attitude control", lasting for 45 minutes, said Montalbano.
He said that the crew had felt no movement and the NASA station revolved around 45 degrees out of the attitude, about one-eighth of a complete circle.
NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said the complex never spun.
NASA’s human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders called it “a pretty exciting hour.”
Russia's long halted 22-ton amounting to 20 metric ton lab called Nauka arrived on eArly hours of Thursday, approximately eight days after it was commenced from the Russian launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Nauka's launch will provide more space for scientific experiments and the crew. The procedure has been repeatedly delayed due to technical glitches.
The launch was initially slated to go up in 2007.
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In 2013, experts saw the file system being contaminated that resulted in an extended and expensive replacement.
Other Nauka systems also underwent modernization or repairs.
Nauka, which spreads about 43 feet long, is the first new cabin for the Russian segment of the outpost since 2010.
Meanwhile, one of the older Russian units on Monday - the Pirs spacewalking compartment was unlocked from the station to make room for the new lab.
Many strategies are needed in Nauka including around 11 spacewalks starting September to set it for operation.
Currently, the space station is being operated by NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur; Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov of Russia’s Roscosmos space corporation; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
Back in 1998, Russia initiated the stations' first compartments, Zarya which was followed by another huge piece in 2000 called Zvezda and three tinier modules in the following years.
One of its last compartments -Rassvet, arrived at the station in 2010.
Running down about the incident, Russian space official, Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, tweeted: “All in order at the ISS. The crew is resting, which is what I advise you to do as well.”
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"According to telemetry data and reports from the ISS crew, the onboard systems of the station and the Nauka module are operating normally," Roscosmos said in a statement.