Mon, Feb 12, 2007
Teams Assessing Affected Systems
NASA says mission control teams are
assessing systems affected by a power loss aboard the ISS over the
weekend.
Early Sunday morning one of the power channels on the P4 solar
array electrical system dropped out when a DC switching unit
failed. The switch controls power from the solar array to batteries
and other components on the station.
The lost power channel briefly cut ISS communication with
mission control, and shut down control moment gyroscope #2, one of
the station's three remaining attitude control gyros. Other
ancillary equipment such as science facilities were also
affected.
NASA says the crew and station were never in danger. The crew
and controllers never lost orientation control of the station which
continued operating on its #1 and #4 gyros -- #3 gyro was
previously shut down awaiting repair.
Flight controller were able to restore power to nearly all
affected systems by Monday morning and are currently investigating
what the agency believes to be an isolated incident.
The crew of expedition 14 -- commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and
flight engineers Sunita Williams and Mikhail Tyurin -- are
preparing for the next spacewalk scheduled for February 22.
Lopez-Alegria and Williams completed their third of three recent
spacewalks last Thursday (Williams photographed herself in the
picture below) prepping the station for further exterior
work during missions STS-118 and STS-120 later this year.
During the next spacewalk -- for which the crew will use Russian
procedures -- Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin will service an antenna on
the Progress 23 cargo ship docked at the Zvezda service module.
After that spacewalk, the crew of expedition 14 will have
completed five -- more than any other ISS crew.
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