US space agency uses Russian system to contact astronauts
US space agency NASA lost contact with the ISS after a power outage and for the first time had to rely on back-up systems. The loss of communications with the International Space Station forced the Americans to rely instead on Russian communications systems.
A power outage at the NASA building in Houston disrupted communications between the US mission control center and the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, forcing the US space agency to rely on backup control systems for the first time.
The outage meant, according to The Guardian, that the mission control center lost control, telemetry and voice communication with the station in orbit. The power outage occurred while upgrading a building at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA was able to contact the American crew with the help of Russian partners at the station about 20 minutes after the problem occurred.
Space station program manager Joel Montalbano said that neither the astronauts nor the station were ever in any danger and that the backup control systems restored normal communication within 90 minutes. “That was not a problem on board. It was a purely ground problem, says Motalbano. “Neither the crew nor the vehicle was ever in danger of any kind.”
“We knew this work was ongoing, and in preparation for it, we have a backup command and control system that we will use if we have to close the weather emergency center, which is especially important during the hurricane season,” said the head program.
This is the first time that NASA has had to launch these redundant systems to take control, Montalbano said. According to him, the agency hopes to resolve the issue and return to normal operations by the end of the day.
NASA maintains a backup control center a few miles from Houston in the event of a disaster requiring evacuation. But in the case of Tuesday, controllers remained in the mission control center as the lighting and air conditioning were still on.
“We will better understand what happened, and then learn from it and move forward,” said Montalbano.
Tensions between the US and Russia on Earth have not prevented their respective space agencies from working together, although Moscow has said it will withdraw from the ISS after 2024 and build its own station instead.
The seven-person crew currently on the International Space Station includes three Americans, three Russians and one of the first two astronauts from the United Arab Emirates. Sultan Al Neyadi, a graduate of the University of Brighton, first flew into space in March and became the first Arab to perform a spacewalk on April 28.