A power outage at Nasa’s building in Houston disrupted communication between mission control and the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, forcing the space agency to rely on backup control systems for the first time. The outage meant mission control lost command, telemetry and voice communications with the station in orbit. The power outage hit as upgrade work was under way in the building at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. The crew was notified of the problem through Russian communication systems, within 20 minutes of the outage. Space station program manager Joel Montalbano said neither the astronauts nor station were ever in any danger and 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,” he said. “At no time was the crew or the vehicle in any danger.” “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 weather emergency, especially important during the hurricane season,” he said.
Full story : Nasa briefly loses contact with ISS after power outage and relies on backup systems for first time.
