The new Russian research module is after an eight-day flight Nauka at the International Space Station ISS arrived. However, after docking there was an incident. The engines of the module were fired “accidentally and unexpectedly” and had the ISS Shifted 45 degrees from its regular trajectory, said the US space agency Nasa via Twitter. Through an emergency, the ISS can be brought back into their regular trajectory, it said. The crew was at no time in danger ISS and all systems on board were working normally.
The Russian astronauts had the hatch of the new one NaukaModule opened and were about to set up their computer with the service module Zvezda to connect than the thrusters of Nauka began to fire around 5.45 p.m. German time. In order to compensate for the movement and to move the station back into the correct position, the Russian control center activated the engines of one of the ISS docked progress-Capsule. According to NASA information, the flight controllers of the Russian space agency Roskosmos planned the Nauka– Reconfigure engines to prevent re-incidents. NASA and Russia are now investigating how the unplanned engine ignition came about.
The start of the module was originally planned for 2007, but completion was delayed for a long time. Partly this was due to budget constraints, but also partly due to technical problems. The result is that some components have been stored for many years. The module increases the habitable volume of the ISS by 70 cubic meters.
The incident happened a day before the Boeing astronaut capsule was scheduled to launch on Friday Starliner to the ISS. NASA canceled this unmanned test flight as part of the “Commercial Crew” program after the incident on Thursday evening, German time. The first thing to do is to ensure that the Boeing capsule is securely attached to the ISS can dock. According to NASA, the new start date is Tuesday, August 3rd at the earliest. The first Starliner-Test in December 2019 failed.
With material from dpa and Bloomberg