Close call in space! NASA loses contact with International Space Station for 90 minutes

NASA's Mission Control in Houston, Texas, experienced a 90-minute power blackout, leaving the International Space Station (ISS) without communication with ground control on Tuesday. The power outage struck at 8 a.m. local time, briefly cutting off contact with the astronauts aboard the ISS.

The astronauts of Expedition 69 were not in danger as they quickly utilised backup power systems to re-establish communication through Russian assets within 20 minutes of the failure.

"We were able to talk to the crew through Russian assets about 20 minutes after the failure," said Joel Montalbano, NASA's ISS program manager. "Within about 90 minutes, we were up and running with full command, telemetry and voice to the International Space Station."

Why did the power outage happen?

The power outage occurred due to upgrades to the Johnson Space Center ground power system, causing an unexpected loss of telemetry, voice communication, and command. "We have been doing some upgrades...to add some reliability to our power systems. We lost the power, the telemetry, the command, and the voice to the International Space Station," explained Montalbano.

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However, the issue was solely on the ground and didn't pose any threat to the ISS crew's safety. This was the first time since 2009, when the ISS became fully operational, that it lost contact with ground control. "We'll better understand what happened and then take lessons learned and move forward," Montalbano added.

Who are the Expedition 69 crew members?

The Expedition 69 crew comprises NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Woody Hoburg, and Stephen Bowen, Roscosmos cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin, Andrey Fedyaev, and Commander Sergey Prokopyev, and UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi.

The ISS is nearing retirement!

The power systems were anticipated to be back to normal by day's end, and NASA will thoroughly investigate the incident. Despite experiencing a momentary communication problem, the International Space Station is approaching the end of its mission. NASA intends to deorbit & bring the station back to Earth by 2031 and send it into the Pacific Ocean.