After engines of a newly arrived Russian module fired up unplanned, the International Space Station was destabilized. Mission control teams corrected the misstep by activating thrusters on other modules of the ISS. Officials of both the United States and Russia strongly state the seven crew members aboard the ISS were not in any danger.
The malfunction occurred three hours after the Nauka module docked on Thursday, after an 8 day flight from Earth. Nauka’s jets fired uncommanded and moved the station 45 degrees out of attitude. The incident was corrected in 95 minutes. Nasa’s ISS programme manager stated the mission control flights teams did a great job and the ability to correct the attitude showed the strengths of the ISS. The unmanned test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule that was scheduled for Friday has been pushed back to allow assessment of the incident.
Read more: Russian module mishap destabilises International Space Station