NASA power outage disrupts communication between Mission Control and ISS

The communication between the International Space Station (ISS) and Mission Control was disrupted on Tuesday (July 25) because of a power outage at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's building in Houston, United States.

The power outage forced the US-based space agency to bank on its backup control systems for the first time.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, mission control lost command, telemetry, and audio communications with the station in orbit.

The incident occurred during an upgrading project at Houston's Johnson Space Centre and the crew was also notified through Russian communication systems.

In a report by The Associated Press, the space station programme manager Joel Montalbano said that there was no danger to the astronauts or the station. He said that backup control systems took over to restore normal communications within 90 minutes.

"It wasn't an issue on board. That was purely a ground problem. At no time was the crew or the vehicle in any danger," he said.

"We knew this work was going on, and in preparation for that we have the backup command and control system that we would use if we have to close the centre for a weather emergency, especially important during the hurricane season," he said.

Montalbano said that it was the first time NASA has had to fire up these backup systems to take control and he also hopes that NASA will resolve the issue and be back to normal operations by the end of the day.

NASA maintains a backup control centre hundreds of miles away from Houston in the case of a hurricane or other disaster that necessitates evacuations. However, because the lights and air conditioning were still operational on Tuesday, the flight controllers remained at mission control.

ISS is a unique space station currently in lower Earth orbit. It facilitates collaborative projects involving five participating space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA and CSA.

The ISS is often visible to the naked eye from Earth's surface as it is the largest artificial object in space and the largest satellite in low Earth orbit.

The ISS is an extraordinary platform for space scientists to analyse and understand the gazillion aspects of the universe. It is an orbital microgravity research platform for research and development.

Scientists and researchers have used the ISS for more than 20 years to research biological, physical, biomedicine, materials and Earth and space science on the 444,615kg gigantic structure.

(With inputs from agencies)

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