International Space Station: ISS loses orientation – Another incident in Earth orbit

The International Space Station ISS has lost its orientation again. The background is the engine tests of a Soyuz space capsule from Russia.

Moscow – It has only been a few months since the International Space Station went out of control for some time. The Russian module “Nauka”, which was just docked, accidentally ignited its engines and turned the ISS by 540 degrees. 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. The Russian space agency Roskosmos has now reported an incident on Twitter that is reminiscent of the “Nauka” incident in August.

During a test of the engines of the Soyuz MS-18 space capsule, the ISS briefly lost its orientation, according to Roskosmos on Twitter and in a report by the Russian news agency Tass. However, the crew was not in danger, Roskosmos informed the agency. Orientation was quickly restored by Russian ISS experts. When the incident occurred and how bad it was is unclear. It is possible that afterwards it turns out that it was much worse than originally reported – just as it was the case in August with the “Nauka” incident.

International Space Station ISS loses orientation

There are currently ten people on board the International Space Station: the cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky, Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov, the actress Yulia Peresild and the director Klim Shipenko, the NASA astronauts: Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, the Esa -Astronaut Thomas Pesquet and the Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. Novitsky, Peresild and Shipenko are scheduled to return to Earth next Sunday (October 17, 2021) with the Soyuz MS-18 space capsule.

The actress Peresild and the director Shipenko are on the ISS to shoot scenes for a film. Four more astronauts are expected to reach the ISS this month (planned for October 30, 2021). A “Crew Dragon” capsule from SpaceX then brings the German Matthias Maurer to the space station in orbit around the earth. Maurer will be the fourth German astronaut on board the ISS; he will live and work in the space station until spring 2022 and, among other things, work on a Russian spacecraft mission. (tab)