Russia's Nauka module throws International Space Station thrown out of control by misfire: NASA

Washington, July 30: The International Space Station (ISS) was thrown briefly out of control on Thursday when jet thrusters of a newly arrived Russian research module accidentally fired its thursters after it was docked to the orbiting outpost. During this incident, the ISS attitude movement never exceeded 0.5 degree per minutes and the crew did not feel the event.

The firing occurred a few hours after docking on Thursday, pushing the orbiting complex from its normal configuration for 47 minutes.

The seven crew members aboard - two Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a European space agency astronaut from France - were never in any immediate danger, according to NASA and Russian state-owned news agency RIA.

Flight controllers regained control using thrusters on other Russian components at the station to right the ship, and it is now stable and safe, NASA said.

At 13:29 EDT / 17:29 UTC, with Nauka's thrusters no longer operating, Russian controllers were able to use Progress MS-17's thrusters to get the Station back in attitude control and returned to a stable orientation.

According to NASA officials, the station moved 45 degrees out of attitude, about one-eighth of a complete circle. The complex was never spinning, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said.

But the malfunction prompted NASA to postpone until at least Aug. 3 its planned launch of Boeing's new CST-100 Starliner capsule on an uncrewed test flight to the space station. The Starliner had been set to blast off atop an Atlas V rocket on Friday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.