Temporary Loss of Communication with Space Station Due to NASA Power Outage
On Tuesday, a power outage at NASA caused a disruption in communication between Mission Control and the International Space Station.
Mission Control was unable to send commands to the station and communicate with the seven astronauts in orbit. The power outage occurred while an upgrade was underway at the Johnson Space Center building in Houston.
Space station program manager Joel Montelbano said the astronauts or the station were never in danger, and that backup control systems took over within 90 minutes. The crew was notified of the problem via Russian communications systems within 20 minutes of the outage.
This is the first time NASA has had to activate these backup systems to take control, according to Montelbano. He said NASA hoped to resolve the issue and return to normal operations by the end of the day.
NASA maintains a backup control center miles from Houston in case of a hurricane or other disaster requiring evacuation. But in Tuesday’s case, air traffic controllers remained in Mission Control because the lights and air conditioning were still working.
