A Brief History
On July 29, 2021, the International Space Station suffered an engine malfunction in its Russian Nauka module, inadvertently firing its thrusters, causing the giant man-made satellite to spin out of control!
Digging Deeper
Luckily the problem was fixed, and operations continued normally after about an hour of extreme tension on board the craft as well as in the ground control center. Launched in 1998, the temporary loss of control has so far been the most serious problem threatening the Space Station.
Created with the international cooperation of five countries plus the European Space Agency, bringing the total number of nations involved to 16, the ISS has been assembled with 16 modules, six of which are run by Russians and 10 of which are run by Americans. The modules were launched separately and joined together while in orbit, an orbit about 260 miles above the Earth at a speed of 17,100 mph. The crew consists of 7 to 11 astronauts.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Baker, David. International Space Station: An insight into the history, development, collaboration, production and role of the permanently manned earth-orbiting complex. Haynes Publishing, 2016.
Buckley, James. Home Address: ISS: International Space Station. Penguin Young Readers, 2015.
The featured image in this article, Nauka docked to the ISS on July 29, 2021, is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that “NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted“. (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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