International Space Station thrown out of control by misfire of Russian module - NASA

TheInternationalSpaceStation(ISS) wasthrownbrieflyoutofcontrolon Thursday when jet thrusters of a newly arrivedRussianresearchmoduleinadvertently fired a few hours after it was docked to the orbitingoutpost,NASAofficials said.

The seven crew members aboard - twoRussiancosmonauts, threeNASAastronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a Europeanspaceagency astronaut from France - were never in any immediate danger, according toNASAandRussianstate-owned news agency RIA.

But the malfunction promptedNASAto postpone until at least Aug. 3 its planned launch of Boeing's new CST-100 Starliner capsule on a highly anticipated uncrewed test flight to thespacestation. The Starliner had been set to blast off atop an Atlas V rocket on Friday from the KennedySpaceCenter in Florida.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

Thursday's mishap began aboutthree hours after the multipurpose Naukamodulehad latched onto thespacestation, as missioncontrollers in Moscow were performing some post-docking "reconfiguration" procedures, according toNASA.

Themodule's jets inexplicably restarted, causing the entirestationto pitchoutof its normal flight position some 250 miles above the Earth, leading the mission's flight director to declare a "spacecraft emergency," USspaceagency officials said.

An unexpected drift in thestation's orientation was first detected by automated ground sensors, followed 15 minutes later by a "loss of attitudecontrol" that lasted a little over 45 minutes, according to Joel Montalbano, manager ofNASA'sspacestationprogram.

Tug of war

Flight teams on the ground managed to restore thespacestation's orientation by activating thrusters on anothermoduleof the orbiting platform,NASAofficials said.

In its broadcast coverage of the incident, RIA citedNASAspecialists at the JohnsonSpaceCenter in Houston, Texas, as describing the struggle to regaincontrolof thespacestationas a "tug of war" between the twomodules.

At the height of the incident, thestationwas pitchingoutof alignment at the rate of abouta half a degree per second, Montalbano said during aNASAconference call with reporters.

The Nauka engines were ultimately switched off, thespacestationwas stabilized and its orientation was restored to where it had begun,NASAsaid.

Communication with the crew was lost for several minutes twice during the disruption, but "there was no immediate danger at any time to the crew," Montalbano said. He said "the crew really didn't feel any movement."

Had the situation become so dangerous as to require evacuation of personnel, the crew could have escaped in aSpaceX crew capsule still parked at theoutpost and designed to serve as a "lifeboat" if necessary, said Steve Stich, manager ofNASA's commercial crew program.

What caused the malfunction of the thrusters on the Naukamodule, delivered by theRussianspaceagency Roscosmos, has yet to be determined,NASAofficials said.

Montalbano said there was no immediate sign of any damage to thespacestation. The flight correction maneuvers used up more propellant reserves than desired, "but nothing I would worry about," he said.

After its launch last week from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, themoduleexperienced a series of glitches that raised concern aboutwhether the docking procedure would go smoothly.

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 process of transferring the Naukamodulefrom flight mode to 'docked with ISS' mode is underway. Work is being carriedouton the remaining fuel in themodule," Roscosmos was cited by TASS as saying.

The Naukamoduleis designed to serve as a research lab, storage unit and airlock that will upgrade Russia's capabilities aboard the ISS.

A live broadcast showed themodule, named after theRussianword for "science," docking with thespacestationa few minutes later than scheduled.

"According to telemetry data and reports from the ISS crew, the onboard systems of thestationand the Naukamoduleare operating normally," Roscosmos said in a statement.

"There is contact!!!" Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, wrote on Twitter moments after the docking.