NASA Says Probe Found No Structural Issues With ISS After Nauka Module Thruster Firing

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th August, 2021) The investigation by NASA has not discovered any structural issues in the International Space Station (ISS) following the unplanned thruster firing by Russia's new multi-functional laboratory module (MLM) Nauka in July, ISS program manager Joel Montalbano said on Friday.

"As far as the MLM, we've taken a look from a structural standpoint of what happened when we did those, those rotations from the jet firing, and we're not tracking any structural issues," Montalbano said at a press conference ahead of the August 28 SpaceX rocket launch.

Montalbano explained that from an engineering standpoint there is nothing that would prevent the ISS's life to be extended beyond 2024 - when the space station is set to expire - to as late as 2030.

On July 31, MLM Nauka was integrated into the ISS but soon after docking the onboard team detected unplanned firing of MLM thrusters causing the station to change its orientation. The ground control teams managed to return control over the ISS movement and stabilize its motion.

The development of the Nauka module started in 1995 as a backup for the first ISS module, Zarya. In 2004, a decision was made to lower the costs of making a new module for the Russian part of the station by repurposing the backup. The module was originally scheduled to go into orbit in 2007, but the launch was postponed multiple times for various reasons.