Impact of space station spin requires study, official says

A Russian space official says engineers will need to analyze whether a glitch that caused the International Space Station to spin out of its normal orientation could have any impact on the orbiting outpost's systems

MOSCOW -- Space engineers will analyze whether a glitch that caused the International Space Station to spin out of its normal orientation could have impacted any of its systems, a Russian space official said Wednesday. Sergei Krikalev, the director of crewed space programs at the Russian space corporation Roscosmos, emphasized that last week's incident did not inflict any observable damage to the space station, but he said that experts would need to study its potential implications. “It appears there is no damage,” Krikalev said in an interview broadcast by Russian state television. "But it’s up to specialists to assess how we have stressed the station and what the consequences are.” Thrusters on Russia's Nauka laboratory module fired shortly after the module arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday, making the orbiting outpost slowly spin about one-and-a-half revolutions. Russia's mission controllers fired thrusters on another Russian module and a Russian cargo ship attached to the space station to stop rotation and then push the station back to its normal position.