NASA
SpaceX launches 4 astronauts for NASA after private flight
SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Wednesday, less than two days after completing a flight chartered by millionaires.
It’s the first NASA crew comprised equally of men and women, including the first Black woman making a long-term spaceflight, Jessica Watkins.
“This is one of the most diversified, I think, crews that we’ve had in a really, really long time,” NASA’s space operations mission chief Kathy Lueders said on the eve of launch.
The astronauts were due to arrive at the space station Wednesday night, 16 hours after their predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center. They will spend five months at the orbiting lab.
SpaceX has now launched five crews for NASA and two private trips in just under two years. Elon Musk’s company is having an especially busy few weeks: It just finished taking three businessmen to and from the space station as NASA’s first private guests.
Also read: SpaceX’s Elon Musk: 1st orbital Starship flight maybe March
A week after the new crew arrives, the three Americans and German they’re replacing will return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule. Three Russians also live at the space station.
Both SpaceX and NASA officials stressed they’re taking it one step at a time to ensure safety. The private mission that concluded Monday encountered no major problems, they said, although high wind delayed the splashdown for a week.
SpaceX Launch Control wished the astronauts good luck and Godspeed moments before the Falcon rocket blasted off with the capsule, named Freedom by its crew.
“Our heartfelt thank you to every one of you that made this possible. Now let Falcon roar and Freedom ring,” radioed NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, the commander. Minutes later, their recycled booster had landed on an ocean platform and their capsule was safely orbiting Earth. “It was a great ride,” he said.
The SpaceX capsules are fully automated — which opens the space gates to a broader clientele — and they’re designed to accommodate a wider range of body sizes. At the same time, NASA and the European Space Agency have been pushing for more female astronauts.
While two Black women visited the space station during the shuttle era, neither moved in for a lengthy stay. Watkins, a geologist who is on NASA’s short list for a moon-landing mission in the years ahead, sees her mission as “an important milestone, I think, both for the agency and for the country.”
She credits supportive family and mentors — including Mae Jemison, the first Black woman in space in 1992 — for “ultimately being able to live my dream.”
Also cheering Watkins on was another geologist: Apollo 17′s Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon in 1972. She invited the retired astronaut to the launch, along with his wife. “We sort of consider ourselves the Jessica team,” he said, chuckling
“Those of us who rode the Saturn V into space are a little bit jaded about the smaller rockets,” Schmitt said after the SpaceX liftoff. “But still, it really was something and on board was a geologist ... I hope it will stand her in good stead for being part of one of the Artemis crews that go to the moon.”
Also read: SpaceX’s Musk: 1st Starship test flight to orbit in January
Like Watkins, NASA astronaut and test pilot Bob Hines is making his first spaceflight. It’s the second visit for the European Space Agency’s lone female astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, a former Italian Air Force fighter pilot, and Lindgren, a physician.
The just-completed private flight was NASA’s first dip into space tourism after years of opposition. The space agency said the three people who paid $55 million each to visit the space station blended in while doing experiments and educational outreach. They were accompanied by a former NASA astronaut employed by Houston-based Axiom Space, which arranged the flight.
“The International Space Station is not a vacation spot. It’s not an amusement park. It is an international laboratory, and they absolutely understood and respected that purpose,” said NASA flight director Zeb Scoville.
NASA also hired Boeing to ferry astronauts after retiring the shuttles. The company will take another shot next month at getting an empty crew capsule to the space station, after software and other problems fouled a 2019 test flight and prevented a redo last summer.
Fuel leak thwarts NASA's dress rehearsal for moon rocket
NASA's latest attempt to fuel its huge moon rocket for a countdown test was thwarted Thursday by a hazardous hydrogen leak, the latest in a series of vexing equipment trouble.
The launch team had just begun loading fuel into the core stage of the rocket when the leak cropped up. This was NASA's third shot at a dress rehearsal, a required step ahead of a test flight to the moon.
This time, the launch team managed to load some super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen into the core stage of the 30-story Space Launch System rocket, but fell far short of the full amount. Liquid hydrogen is extremely hazardous, with officials noting that the systems had been checked for leaks prior to the test.
Also read: China launches new satellite for Earth observation
Technicians deliberately left the smaller upper stage empty, after discovering a bad valve last week. The helium valve inside the upper stage cannot be replaced until the rocket is back in its hangar at Kennedy Space Center.
Two previous countdown attempts were marred by balky fans and a large hand-operated valve that workers mistakenly left closed at the pad last week.
Officials said via Twitter that they're assessing their next steps.
Also read: Researchers print 3D cardiac tissue capable of sustaining pulses for over 6 months
NASA had been targeting June for the launch debut of the 322-foot (98-meter) SLS rocket. The empty Orion capsule on top will be sent on a four- to six-week mission around the moon and back.
Astronauts will strap in for the second test flight around the moon, planned for 2024. That would be followed as early as 2025 with the first lunar landing by astronauts since 1972. NASA plans to announce the crews for these two missions this summer.
How to Become an Astronaut?
Being an astronaut is an ambition you should not set out to achieve without first knowing the hard work needed. It takes years of education and training before you can even apply to become an astronaut. Once you are accepted into the program, you will go through rigorous classes that teach engineering, biology, chemistry, geology, math, and physics. It also takes physical strength to be an astronaut; there is no other way around it. If you are interested in becoming an astronaut, keep reading.
What does astronaut mean?
Astronaut is an English word that came from a Greek word which means ‘Star Sailor.’ And naturally, we can call astronauts the star sailors. Because all their work is in the land of the stars, they have to go on a ship (spaceship) and do research there.
How to become an astronaut?
It is a question that has been asked by many over the years. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to become an astronaut as you need to go through some steps. You need to be in excellent shape, have a college degree in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and pass a rigorous selection process. There are many different ways to prepare for a career as an astronaut, but the ultimate goal is the same. Hence, the requirements remain the same.
Read Meet the man who won a trip to space and gave it to a friend
When it comes to recruiting astronauts, NASA doesn’t employ a massive workforce. At present NASA has 48 active astronauts and so far, around 600 people went to space in the last 50 years. So, you can understand how hard it is to land your career as an astronaut.
Anyone, civilian or military, can apply to become an astronaut. However, some qualifications are required to apply. These are described one by one below:
Educational requirement
First of all, the person has to be a US citizen. In the case of education, NASA is very strict and the person should have a master’s degree with an excellent result in a STEM field. The degree can be in engineering, computer science, biological science, mathematics, or physical science. Candidates may also possess a Ph.D. degree in the related field, a completed doctor of medicine or medical degree in doctor of osteopathic, or completion of a nationally recognized test pilot school program.
Read New space telescope reaches final stop million miles out
Physical fitness
In addition to a strong educational background, your physical fitness should be NASA standard. Your height cannot be too short or too high. The candidate must stand between 5’2” and 6’3” in height which is between 62 and 75 inches.
For eyesight, 20/20 vision is needed and this cannot exceed 140/90 in the normal sitting position. The prospective astronauts should also pass the swimming test. The selected candidate will have to go through military water survival training and the person will also need scuba certification. Therefore, strong swimming skills are also necessary.
Flight experience
According to NASA, the candidate needs to have professional flight test experience, which will help them to launch the aircraft. The person might require 1,000 hours of jet aircraft pilot-in-command time. However, commercial pilots may also be eligible to apply if they have 1,500 hours of flight time.
Read Successful transplant of pig's heart into a human body for the first time
Selection process and Training
All civilian and military candidates have to go through a week-long process, where they have to face personal interviews, medical examinations, orientations.
Training
The selected applicants enter into an agreement with the organization concerned. (In the case of NASA, it is the astronaut's office at the Johnson Space Station in Houston, Texas.) This was followed by two years of continuous training. It teaches everything about the space exploration mission. Military candidates, on the other hand, continue to improve their experience with NASA aircraft.
Candidates have to pass the swimming test in the first month of the training. They have to finish the swimming syllabus before starting the flying syllabus. They also need to be SCUBA qualified for spacewalk training. SCUBA is an underwater swimming pool with a supply of compressed air. Candidates have to swim 3 times in a 25-meter-long pool without stopping.
Read The heat stays on: Earth hits 6th warmest year on record
Then they have to do the same thing again wearing spacesuits and tennis suits; However, in the second case, there is no set time for completion of the work. Candidates are exposed to high and low atmospheric pressure in a high chamber so that they can get an idea of the problems that may arise in such situations and apply them in the mission.
The candidates are then made to feel artificial weightlessness on a jet aircraft, which lasts about 20 seconds. And the process continues about 40 times a day for 20 seconds each time. Further, NASA uses Zero G flight to give a feel of the actual weightlessness.
Training in Zero G flight training
And the selection of astronauts for space missions is based on the successful completion of these tests or training. However, successful completion of some other training such as International Space Station systems training, Russian Language training, Extravehicular Activity skills training, Aircraft Flight readiness training, and Robotics skills training is required for final selection. Civilian candidates who cannot be selected as astronauts are appointed to the respective institutions according to their qualifications, subject to vacancies.
Read Scientists explore Thwaites, Antarctica's 'doomsday' glacier
Special training
After being finally selected, the astronauts have to face the most difficult training. Spacecraft trainers teach them every detail of Aircraft Systems including operating spacecraft. So that they can come over any kind of problem on the mission.
Challenges faced by the Astronauts
Astronauts in space have to deal with a number of problems. Lack of gravity can cause headaches, nausea, and loss of appetite. Many people sometimes feel as if a subatomic bullet is coming through their eyeballs.
Some people feel that there is an abnormal flash of light coming out of their eyes. None of this is good for the human eye. About three-quarters of astronauts have suffered eye problems after the mission.
Read Meet the man who won a trip to space and gave it to a friend
Due to the absence of gravitational force, it is sometimes the case that some of the astronauts continue to feel that their body is leaning forward. The astronaut may not even feel exactly where his limbs are. About half the astronauts suffer from this problem; This is called "Space Adaptation Syndrome."
Career prospects and salary
No matter how you prepare, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to become an astronaut. But, if you have the passion and determination, then you can achieve your dream of becoming an astronaut!
The NASA astronauts make around $24,079 to $640,817 a year which is around BDT 26 lakhs to BDT 5.5 crore a year. The median salary is $116,165 equivalent to BDT 99 lakhs. However, the top 86% of NASA astronauts make $640,817 or BDT 5.5 crore a year.
Read Four station astronauts catch ride with SpaceX back home
Final Words
Many people have a misguided view of astronauts as being just pilots that have been lucky enough to have been chosen for their dream job. Hopefully, this article will work as a brief guide for people who want to be astronauts.
Meet the man who won a trip to space and gave it to a friend
He told his family and a few friends. He dropped hints to a couple of colleagues. So hardly anyone knew that the airline pilot could have — should have — been on board when SpaceX launched its first tourists into orbit last year.
Meet Kyle Hippchen, the real winner of a first-of-its-kind sweepstakes, who gave his seat to his college roommate.
Though Hippchen’s secret is finally out, that doesn’t make it any easier knowing he missed his chance to orbit Earth because he exceeded the weight limit. He still hasn’t watched the Netflix series on the three-day flight purchased by a tech entrepreneur for himself and three guests last September.
“It hurts too much,” he said. “I’m insanely disappointed. But it is what it is.”
Hippchen, 43, a Florida-based captain for Delta’s regional carrier Endeavor Air, recently shared his story with The Associated Press during his first visit to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center since his lost rocket ride.
Also read: New space telescope reaches final stop million miles out
He opened up about his out-of-the-blue, dream-come-true windfall, the letdown when he realized he topped SpaceX’s weight restrictions of 250 pounds (113 kilograms) and his offer to the one person he knew would treasure the flight as much as himself. Four months later, he figures probably fewer than 50 people know he was the actual winner.
“It was their show, and I didn’t want to be distracting too much from what they were doing,” said Hippchen, who watched the launch from a VIP balcony.
His seat went to Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington. The pair roomed together starting in the late 1990s while attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. They’d pile into cars with other student space geeks and make the hourlong drive south for NASA’s shuttles launches. They also belonged to a space advocacy group, going to Washington to push commercial space travel.
Despite living on opposite coasts, Hippchen and Sembroski continued to swap space news and champion the cause. Neither could resist when Shift4 Payments founder and CEO Jared Isaacman raffled off a seat on the flight he purchased from SpaceX’s Elon Musk. The beneficiary was St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Hippchen snapped up $600 worth of entries. Sembroski, about to start a new job at Lockheed Martin, shelled out $50. With 72,000 entries in the random drawing last February, neither figured he’d win and didn’t bother telling the other.
By early March, Hippchen started receiving vague emails seeking details about himself. That’s when he read the contest’s small print: The winner had to be under 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds (2 meters and 113 kilograms).
Hippchen was 5-foot-10 and 330 pounds (1.8 meters and 150 kilograms).
He told organizers he was pulling out, figuring he was only one of many finalists. In the flurry of emails and calls that followed, Hippchen was stunned to learn he’d won.
With a September launch planned, the timeline was tight. Still new at flying people, SpaceX needed to start measuring its first private passengers for their custom-fitted flight suits and capsule seats. As an aerospace engineer and pilot, Hippchen knew the weight limit was a safety issue involving the seats, and could not be exceeded.
Also read: Japanese space tourists safely return to Earth
“I was trying to figure how I could drop 80 pounds in six months, which, I mean, it’s possible, but it’s not the most healthy thing in the world to do,” Hippchen said.
Isaacman, the spaceflight’s sponsor, allowed Hippchen to pick a stand-in.
“Kyle’s willingness to gift his seat to Chris was an incredible act of generosity,” he said in an email this week.
Isaacman introduced his passengers at the end of March: a St. Jude physician assistant who beat cancer there as a child; a community college educator who was Shift4 Payments’ winning business client; and Sembroski.
Hippchen joined them in April to watch SpaceX launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA, the company’s last crew flight before their own.
In gratitude, Sembroski offered to take personal items into space for Hippchen. He gathered his high school and college rings, airline captain epaulets, a great-uncle’s World War I Purple Heart and odds and ends from his best friends from high school, warning, “Don’t ask any details.”
By launch day on Sept. 15, word had gotten around. As friends and families gathered for the liftoff, Hippchen said the conversation went like this: “My name’s Kyle. Are you The Kyle? Yeah, I’m The Kyle.”
Before climbing into SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, Sembroski followed tradition and used the phone atop the launch tower to make his one allotted call. He called Hippchen and thanked him one more time.
“I’m forever grateful,” Sembroski said.
And while Hippchen didn’t get to see Earth from orbit, he did get to experience about 10 minutes of weightlessness. During Sembroski’s flight, he joined friends and family of the crew on a special zero-gravity plane.
“It was a blast.”
New space telescope reaches final stop million miles out
The world’s biggest, most powerful space telescope arrived at its observation post 1 million miles from Earth on Monday, a month after it lifted off on a quest to behold the dawn of the universe.
On command, the James Webb Space Telescope fired its rocket thrusters for nearly five minutes to go into orbit around the sun at its designated location, and NASA confirmed the operation went as planned.
The mirrors on the $10 billion observatory still must be meticulously aligned, the infrared detectors sufficiently chilled and the scientific instruments calibrated before observations can begin in June.
Also read: Space telescope launched on daring quest to behold 1st stars
But flight controllers in Baltimore were euphoric after chalking up another success.
“We’re one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. And I can’t wait to see Webb’s first new views of the universe this summer!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.
The telescope will enable astronomers to peer back further in time than ever before, all the way back to when the first stars and galaxies were forming 13.7 billion years ago. That’s a mere 100 million years from the Big Bang, when the universe was created.
Besides making stellar observations, Webb will scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for possible signs of life.
Also read: Four station astronauts catch ride with SpaceX back home
Four station astronauts catch ride with SpaceX back home
Four astronauts in orbit since spring headed back to Earth on Monday, aiming for a late night splashdown off the Florida coast.
The undocking of their SpaceX capsule from the International Space Station also paved the way for a launch of their four replacements as early as Wednesday night.
Read:China's 1st woman to spacewalk works 6 hours outside station
The newcomers were scheduled to launch first, but NASA switched the order because of bad weather and an astronaut's undisclosed medical condition. The welcoming duties will now fall to the lone American and two Russians left behind at the space station.
NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and France's Thomas Pesquet should have been back Monday morning, but high wind in the recovery zone delayed their homecoming. Their splashdown was planned for the Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola.
“One more night with this magical view. Who could complain? I’ll miss our spaceship!” Pesquet tweeted alongside a brief video showing the space station illuminated against the blackness of space and the twinkling city lights on the nighttime side of Earth.
From the space station, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei -- midway through a one-year flight -- bid farewell to each of his departing friends, telling McArthur "I’ll miss hearing your laughter in adjacent modules.”
Before leaving the neighborhood, the four took a spin around the space station to take pictures. This was the first time SpaceX attempted a flyaround like this; NASA's shuttles used to do it all the time before their retirement a decade ago.
Read: Russian filmmakers land after shoot aboard space station
It wasn't the most comfortable ride back. The toilet in their capsule was broken, and so the astronauts needed to rely on diapers for the eight-hour trip home. They shrugged it off late last week as just one more challenge in their mission.
The first issue arose shortly after their April liftoff; Mission Control warned a piece of space junk was threatening to collide with their capsule. It turned out to be a false alarm. Then in July, thrusters on a newly arrived Russian lab inadvertently fired and sent the station into a spin. The four astronauts took shelter in their docked SpaceX capsule, ready to make a hasty departure if necessary.
Among the upbeat milestones: four spacewalks to enhance the station's solar power, a movie-making visit by a Russian film crew and the first-ever space harvest of chile peppers. Their 200-day mission began last April.
Higher but still slim odds of asteroid Bennu slamming Earth
The good news is that scientists have a better handle on asteroid Bennu’s whereabouts for the next 200 years. The bad news is that the space rock has a slightly greater chance of clobbering Earth than previously thought.
But don’t be alarmed: Scientists reported Wednesday that the odds are still quite low that Bennu will hit us in the next century.
“We shouldn’t be worried about it too much,” said Davide Farnocchia, a scientist with NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who served as the study’s lead author.
While the odds of a strike have risen from 1-in-2,700 to 1-in-1,750 over the next century or two, scientists now have a much better idea of Bennu’s path thanks to NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft, according to Farnocchia.
Also read: Dinosaur-killing asteroid strike gave rise to Amazon rainforest
“So I think that overall, the situation has improved,” he told reporters.
The spacecraft is headed back to Earth on a long, roundabout loop after collecting samples from the large, spinning rubble pile of an asteroid, considered one of the two most hazardous known asteroids in our solar system. The samples are due here in 2023.
Before Osiris-Rex arrived at Bennu in 2018, telescopes provided solid insight into the asteroid, about one-third of a mile (one-half kilometer) in diameter. The spacecraft collected enough data over 2 1/2 years to help scientists better predict the asteroid’s orbital path well into the future.
Their findings — published in the journal Icarus — should also help in charting the course of other asteroids and give Earth a better fighting chance if and when another hazardous space rock heads our way.
Before Osiris-Rex arrived on the scene, scientists put the odds of Bennu hitting Earth through the year 2200 at 1-in-2,700. Now it’s 1-in-1,750 through the year 2300. The single most menacing day is Sept. 24, 2182.
Also read: Japan awaits capsule’s return with asteroid soil samples
Bennu will have a close encounter with Earth in 2135 when it passes within half the distance of the moon. Earth’s gravity could tweak its future path and put it on a collision course with Earth in the 2200s — less likely now based on Osiris-Rex observations.
If Bennu did slam into Earth, it wouldn’t wipe out life, dinosaur-style, but rather create a crater roughly 10 to 20 times the size of the asteroid, said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer. The area of devastation would be much bigger: as much as 100 times the size of the crater.
If an object Bennu’s size hit the Eastern Seaboard, it “would pretty much devastate things up and down the coast,” he told reporters.
Scientists already are ahead of the curve with Bennu, which was discovered in 1999. Finding threatening asteroids in advance increases the chances and options for pushing them out of our way, Johnson said.
“One-hundred years from now, who knows what the technology is going to be?” he said.
In November, NASA plans to launch a mission to knock an asteroid off-course by hitting it. The experimental target will be the moonlet of a bigger space rock.
Space station supplies launched with a pizza delivery for 7
Northrop Grumman’s latest space station delivery includes pizza for seven.
The company’s Cygnus cargo ship rocketed away from Virginia’s eastern shore Tuesday. It should reach the International Space Station on Thursday.
Read: Virgin Galactic restarts space-trip sales at $450,000 and up
The 8,200-pound (3,700-kilogram) shipment includes fresh apples, tomatoes and kiwi, along with a pizza kit and cheese smorgasbord for the seven station astronauts.
Also flying: a mounting bracket for new solar wings launching to the orbiting lab next year, a material simulating moon dust and dirt that will be used to create items from the space station’s 3D printer, slime mold for a French educational experiment called Blob and an infrared-detecting device meant as a prototype for future tracking satellites.
It is Northrop Grumman’s 16th supply run for NASA and its biggest load yet. The company’s Antares rocket hoisted the capsule from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.
“Aloha to the S.S. Ellison Onizuka,” Northrop Grumman said via Launch Control minutes before liftoff. The capsule was named for Hawaii’s Onizuka, the first Asian American in space who died in the 1986 Challenger launch disaster.
Read:New Russian lab briefly knocks space station out of position
NASA’s other shipper, SpaceX, will follow with a cargo run in a few weeks.
The space station is currently home to three Americans, two Russians, one French and one Japanese.
Want to pretend to live on Mars? For a whole year? Apply now
Want to find your inner Matt Damon and spend a year pretending you are isolated on Mars? NASA has a job for you.
To prepare for eventually sending astronauts to Mars, NASA began taking applications Friday for four people to live for a year in Mars Dune Alpha. That’s a 1,700-square-foot Martian habitat, created by a 3D-printer, and inside a building at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The paid volunteers will work a simulated Martian exploration mission complete with spacewalks, limited communications back home, restricted food and resources and equipment failures.
Also read: Navigation error sends NASA’s Mars helicopter on wild ride
NASA is planning three of these experiments with the first one starting in the fall next year. Food will all be ready-to-eat space food and at the moment there are no windows planned. Some plants will be grown, but not potatoes like in the movie “The Martian.” Damon played stranded astronaut Mark Watney, who survived on spuds.
“We want to understand how humans perform in them,” said lead scientist Grace Douglas. “We are looking at Mars realistic situations.”
The application process opened Friday and they’re not seeking just anybody. The requirements are strict, including a master’s degree in a science, engineering or math field or pilot experience. Only American citizens or permanent U.S. residents are eligible. Applicants have to be between 30 and 55, in good physical health with no dietary issues and not prone to motion sickness.
That shows NASA is looking for people who are close to astronauts, said former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. And, he said. that’s a good thing because it is a better experiment if the participants are more similar to the people who will really go to Mars. Past Russian efforts at a pretend Mars mission called Mars 500 didn’t end well partly because the people were too much like everyday people, he said.
Also read: China’s Mars rover touches ground on red planet
For the right person this could be great, said Hadfield, who spent five months in orbit in 2013 at the International Space Station, where he played guitar and sang a cover video of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
“Just think how much you’re going to be able to catch up on Netflix,” he said. “If they have a musical instrument there, you could go into there knowing nothing and come out a concert musician, if you want.”
There could be “incredible freedom” in a “year away from the demands of your normal life.”
Attitude is key, said Hadfield, who has a novel “The Apollo Murders” coming out in the fall. He said the participants need to be like Damon’s Watney character: “Super competent, resourceful and not relying on other people to feel comfortable.”
New Russian lab briefly knocks space station out of position
A newly arrived Russian science lab briefly knocked the International Space Station out of position Thursday when it accidentally fired its thrusters.
For 47 minutes, the space station lost control of its orientation when the firing occurred a few hours after docking, pushing the orbiting complex from its normal configuration. The station’s position is key for getting power from solar panels and or communications. Communications with ground controllers also blipped out twice for a few minutes.
Flight controllers regained control using thrusters on other Russian components at the station to right the ship, and it is now stable and safe, NASA said.
Also read: 18-year-old joining Blue Origin’s 1st passenger spaceflight
“We haven’t noticed any damage,” space station program manager Joel Montalbano said in a late afternoon press conference. “There was no immediate danger at anytime to the crew.”
Montalbano said the crew didn’t really feel any movement or any shaking. NASA said the station moved 45 degrees out of attitude, about one-eighth of a complete circle. The complex was never spinning, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said.
NASA’s human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders called it “a pretty exciting hour.”
The incident caused NASA to postpone a repeat test flight for Boeing’s crew capsule that had been set for Friday afternoon from Florida. It will be Boeing’s second attempt to reach the 250-mile-high station before putting astronauts on board; software problems botched the first test.
Russia’s long-delayed 22-ton (20-metric-ton) lab called Nauka arrived earlier Thursday, eight days after it launched from the Russian launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Also read: No ET, no answers: Intel report is inconclusive about UFOs
The launch of Nauka, which will provide more room for scientific experiments and space for the crew, had been repeatedly delayed because of technical problems. It was initially scheduled to go up in 2007.
In 2013, experts found contamination in its fuel system, resulting in a long and costly replacement. Other Nauka systems also underwent modernization or repairs.
Stretching 43 feet (13 meters) long, Nauka became the first new compartment for the Russian segment of the outpost since 2010. On Monday, one of the older Russian units, the Pirs spacewalking compartment, undocked from the station to free up room for the new lab.
Nauka will require many maneuvers, including up to 11 spacewalks beginning in early September, to prepare it for operation.
The space station is currently 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.
In 1998, Russia launched the station’s first compartment, Zarya, which was followed in 2000 by another big piece, Zvezda, and three smaller modules in the following years. The last of them, Rassvet, arrived at the station in 2010.
Russian space officials downplayed the incident with Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, tweeting: “All in order at the ISS. The crew is resting, which is what I advise you to do as well.”