Roscosmos confirms that a computer glitch occurred onboard the International Space Station. However, the Russian space agency assures that the orbital operations are unaffected.
Computer Glitch On The ISS
The computer glitch happened in the Russian side of the ISS and has only affected one out of three units. Right now, it is still out of service, but the crew is unharmed and the glitch did not affect work onboard the outpost.
Roscosmos also said in a statement published on Tuesday, Nov. 6, that the team could operate with only two working computers. The affected unit will not be replaced right now, but it will be rebooted to prepare for the docking of the Progress, a cargo spacecraft, on Thursday, Nov. 8.
Bad Couple Of Months At The ISS
There are currently three people onboard the orbiting space outpost: American Serena Aunon-Chancellor, Russian Sergei Prokopyev, and German Alexander Gerst.
Two other astronauts, namely American Nick Hague and Russian Alexei Ovchinin, were supposed to join the crew last month. However, the Soyuz rocket carrying them experienced a malfunction a few moments after liftoff. The two were sent into a ballistic descent back to the ground but neither of them received any serious injury from the descent.
Russia conducted an investigation to figure out what went wrong. They identified that a sensor onboard the rocket had failed to signal during separation of the first and second stages, causing one of the side boosters to slam to the rocket. As a result, the mission was aborted. The Oct. 11 accident was the first aborted manned launch for the Russian space program since 1983.
A few months ago, the crew onboard the ISS also found a small hole inside one the docked Soyuz capsule. It caused air to escape and pressure to drop slightly inside the orbiting outpost, but the problem was immediately patched by the astronauts without causing any serious concern.
Aunon-Chancellor, Prokopyev, and Gerst will return to Earth in December, finishing a six-month mission. Three new astronauts — Russian Oleg Kononenko, Canadian David Saint-Jacques, and American Anne McClain — are set to replace them and will be heading to the ISS on Dec. 3.
