![]() There is an ongoing debate about the future of the station beyond 2025, when it is thought some of the original structure will reach 'end of life'. So far 244 individuals from 19 countries have visited the station, and among them eight private citizens who spent up to $50 million for their visit. The US space agency, NASA, spends about $3 billion (£2.4 billion) a year on the space station program, with the remaining funding coming from international partners, including Europe, Russia and Japan. ISS studies have investigated human research, space medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, astronomy and meteorology. Research conducted aboard the ISS often requires one or more of the unusual conditions present in low Earth orbit, such as low-gravity or oxygen. The International Space Station has been continuously occupied for more than 20 years and has been expended with multiple new modules added and upgrades to systems 'Work is being carried out on the remaining fuel in the module.' 'The process of transferring the Nauka module from flight mode to "docked with ISS" mode is underway.' Roscosmos was cited by TASS as saying. Roscosmos attributed Thursday's post-docking issue to Nauka's engines having to work with residual fuel in the craft, TASS news agency reported. The flight correction maneuvers used up more propellant reserves than desired, 'but nothing I would worry about,' he said.Īfter its launch last week from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, the module experienced a series of glitches that raised concern about whether the docking procedure would go smoothly. Montalbano said there was no immediate sign of any damage to the space station. The launch was scheduled for Friday afternoon but has been delayed until August 3 at the earliest The mishap began about three hours after it latched onto the ISS, as mission controllers in Moscow were performing some post-docking 'reconfiguration' procedures, according to NASA.īoeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft sits atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, on Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ready for the second un-piloted test flight to the International Space Station, Thursday, July 29, 2021. NASA had reported Nauka's successful docking on Thursday before announcing the incident that followed. The Starliner, which will transport up to seven passengers to and from low-Earth orbit, had been set to blast off atop an Atlas V rocket on Friday (July 30) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The malfunction has forced NASA to postpone its planned launch of Boeing's new CST-100 Starliner capsule on a highly anticipated uncrewed test flight to ISS until at least August 3. ![]() ![]() What caused the malfunction of the thrusters on the Nauka module, which was delivered by the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has yet to be determined, NASA officials said. 'Ground teams have regained attitude control and the motion of the space station is stable.' 'The crew was never and is not in any danger, and flight controllers in Mission Control Houston are monitoring the status of the space station,' NASA said in a statement. 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. Russian state-owned news agency RIA cited NASA specialists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, as describing the struggle to regain control of the ISS as a 'tug of war' between the two modules. If this was lost, the ISS would 'decay', meaning it would get closer and closer to Earth before it came crashing down. The station's position is key for getting power from its solar panels. This caused the ISS to move out of attitude – its orientation in relation to its direction of travel – by 45 degrees, or one-eighth of a complete circle. Nauka, which is designed to serve as a research lab, storage unit and airlock, docked at the ISS on Thursday at 9:29am EDT (2:29pm BST).īut following the docking, the flight control team noticed the 'unplanned firing' of its thrusters about three hours later, NASA announced. In a worrying episode for NASA, the ISS was thrown out of control when jet thrusters of the 22-ton Nauka research module inadvertently fired a few hours after it docked. ![]() The International Space Station (ISS) averted a disaster on Thursday after a newly arrived Russian module suffered a concerning mishap. ![]()
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