Impact of Space Station Spin Requires Study, Official Says

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." NASA emphasized Wednesday that the station was operating normally and noted that the spin was within safety limits for its systems.