WASHINGTON — New details have emerged about last week’s frightening incident when a freshly docked Russian module started firing its thrusters, causing the International Space Station to flip backwards one-and-a-half times during a dramatic 47-minute tug of war. Here are the details: <br /> <br /> <br />Gizmodo reports that NASA has provided new information about the accident the International Space Station suffered on Thursday, July 29. <br /> <br /> <br />The incident happened some three hours after Russia’s Nauka module docked to the space station. <br /> <br /> <br />Russian crew members were working to integrate the module when its thrusters suddenly fired, trying to pull the module away from a space station it was securely docked to. <br /> <br /> <br />The worst part was that Nauka was configured so that it could receive commands only from a ground station in Russia, and the next pass over Russia was 70 minutes away. <br /> <br /> <br />Unable to disable Nauka’s thrusters, Russian controllers counteracted the momentum by firing thrusters attached to the Zvezda Service Module. <br /> <br /> <br />Fearing this might not be enough, they also fired thrusters on a Progress cargo ship docked to the station. <br /> <br /> <br />This 15-minute tug-of-war finally stopped when Nauka’s thrusters suddenly cut out, for reasons that are still unclear. <br /> <br /> <br />With attitude control regained, the flight controllers were able to right the ship. <br /> <br /> <br />NASA maintains that the crew of seven was never in any danger, but Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Gizmodo this was one of the more serious incidents in the 24-year-history of the ISS. <br /> <br /> <br />The loss of attitude control, he said, “risks breakup” of the entire structure. <br /> <br /> <br />
