NASA Mission Control Loses Communication With ISS Due To Power Outage, Uses Backup System For First Time: Report

NASA's Johnson Space Center, which leads ISS operations, had to use backup control systems for the first time due to communication disruption between mission control and the ISS.

The Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, NASA's centre for human spaceflight, suffered a power outage on July 25, 2023, causing communication between the International Space Station (ISS) and mission control to be disrupted. As a result, JSC, which leads ISS operations, had to use backup control systems for the first time, The Associated Press (AP) reported. There are currently seven humans in the orbital laboratory, and due to the communication disruption, mission control was unable to send commands to the station and speak to the crew members. Upgrade work was being conducted at JSC, when the power outage occurred.

Joel Montalbano, ISS Program Manager, said the backup control systems restored communication within 90 minutes, and neither the ISS crew members nor the space station were in danger. Within 20 minutes of the outage, mission control informed the ISS crew of the outage using Russian communication systems. 

Montalbano said this was the first time NASA used backup control systems, and also stated that the space agency hoped to resolve the issue and resume normal operations by the end of the day, according to an AP report.

When a hurricane or other disaster that demands evacuations occurs, NASA uses a backup control centre several kilometres away from Houston. However, on July 25, the flight controllers remained at JSC because the lights and air-conditioning were still working.

According to a report by The Guardian, Montalbano said the JSC has a backup command and control system that mission control could use if they need to close the centre for weather emergencies, especially important during the hurricane season. He stated that mission control hopes to better understand what happened, take the lessons learned, and move forward. 

Meanwhile, despite Moscow saying that it will no longer send cosmonauts to the ISS after 2024, and instead, build its own station, NASA and Roscosmos have not stopped working together. 

A micrometeoroid caused a Soyuz spacecraft connected to the ISS to become damaged in January, as a result of which Moscow launched a rescue vessel to the space station to bring three crew members back to Earth.