14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the American space agency NASA announced that yesterday, after shuttle Endeavor had departed from the International Space Station (ISS), a glitch in the outpost's main computer knocked down communications between it and Earth briefly. The situation has since been resolved, and now everything is running within parameters. Needless to say, such incidents can be extremely dangerous for the lives of astronauts living in low-Earth orbit, seeing how a lack of communications with the planet can keep them blind to incoming space debris and micrometeorites, Space reports.
According to experts, the glitch occurred at 9 am EST (1400 GMT), in one of the main command and control computer systems aboard the ISS. After about an hour of blackout, a back-up system kicked in as planned, and data transfer was restored between the spacecraft and Mission Control. Logs indicate that the glitch actually occurred four times, with each of the main computers going through a cycle in which they shifted their functions to their respective backups systems. At this point however, all the main systems are functioning at full capacity.
The main culprit for these problems is now believed to be signals originating from the Columbus laboratory, which was built by the European Space Agency (ESA). Engineers came to this conclusion after analyzing all signals sent by the ISS, including the ones coming from the newly-installed Tranquility module. “Sounds like some good detective work going on down there,” NASA astronaut Jeffrey William, the current leader of Expedition 22, and the acting ISS commander, radioed to Mission Control. The suspect signals are currently being deciphered and analyzed thoroughly, NASA reports.
According to spokespersons for the agency, the life of astronauts was not endangered at any point. They add that the life systems aboard the ISS continued to function throughout the glitches. “There's been no impact to life support systems on board the space station, so no threat to crew safety,” spokesman Pat Ryan said on NASA TV. After the computer problems were over, the crew aboard the station jokingly asked for an extra day off, so as to rest after the hectic nine days that marked the STS-130 mission, flown by the space shuttle Endeavor. They received more time off, NASA said, and have until Wednesday to recharge their batteries before resuming normal operations.