ISS out of control, lost contact with crew – incident worse than Nasa communicated

The incident in which the US space agency Nasa lost control of the international space station ISS was arguably worse than previously communicated.

Houston / Frankfurt – The International Space Station ISS moves its orbits around the earth normally inconspicuously and without major events. But last Thursday (July 29th, 2021) it was different: The Russian module “Nauka”, which was docked at the ISS, ignited its engines due to a software error and messed up the flight path of the space station. The US space agency NASA lost control of the ISS for about an hour, and contact with the crew on board the International Space Station was also lost. But apparently the situation was far worse than it was communicated by NASA so far.

According to NASA, the space station turned 45 degrees during the unplanned maneuver when the situation was under control again. But now the Nasa flight director Zebulon Scoville, who was on duty during the situation, spoke to the New York Times and described what really happened. “That was reported a bit wrongly,” the US newspaper quoted the NASA employee as saying.

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International Space Station ISS was out of control – NASA report glossed over the incident

In fact, the International Space Station made a total of one and a half revolutions – about 540 degrees – before coming to an upside-down stop. Then the ISS made a forward 180 degree turn to return to its original orientation. The space station has rotated a maximum of 0.56 degrees per second, so Scoville. The seven astronauts inside the station had hardly noticed any changes and were never in danger, the NASA flight director also emphasizes.

The Russian space agency Roskosmos later explained the unscheduled ignition of the engines on the new Russian ISS module “Nauka” as a software error. At the same time, the configuration of the module ensured that “Nauka” could not be deactivated directly: direct commands to the module had to be sent from a ground station in Russia – and it should take another 70 minutes before the space station flew over Russia again.

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NASA: “Tug of war” around the International Space Station – lost contact with the crew

What could be controlled directly, however, were the engines of the Russian service module Zvezda and the space freighter Progress, which had brought cargo to the ISS and was still docked there. The engines worked against the incorrectly started module, which in this “tug of war”, as NASA employees later called it, only gave up when the fuel ran out.

ISS: NASA employee reports an emergency – contact with the crew lost twice

Scoville, who shouldn’t be on duty that day, reported an emergency for the first time in his seven years as ISS flight director, he remembers the exciting mission. Through this message, additional antennas were activated in the USA in order to communicate with the space station. Nevertheless, they lost contact with the crew on board the ISS twice – once for four minutes, the second time for seven minutes. This was due to the rotation of the space station: Due to the changed orientation, the ISS could no longer make contact with the satellites, via which communication normally takes place.

When the situation on the ISS returned to normal, the astronauts on board got the rest of the day off. According to information from the New York Times, there is so far no evidence of damage to the space station. It seems like the ISS just barely missed a catastrophe. (Tanja Banner)

Rubric list image: © Nasa/Roscosmos