The International Space Station regained contact with NASA
controllers in Houston after almost three hours of accidental quiet, the
space agency says.
Officials say the six crew members and station are fine and had no problem during the brief outage.
NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said something went
wrong around 9:45 a.m. EST Tuesday during a computer software update on
the station. The outpost abruptly lost all communication, voice and
command from Houston.
Communication was restored less than three hours later, Byerly said
"We've got our command and control back," he said.
Station commander Kevin Ford was able to briefly radio Moscow while the station was flying over Russia.
Normally, NASA communicates with and sends commands
to the station from Houston, via three communications satellites that
transmit voice, video and data. Such interruptions have happened a few
times in the past, the space agency said.
If there is no crisis going on, losing
communication with the ground "is not a terrible thing," said former
astronaut Jerry Linenger, who was on the Russian space station Mir
during a dangerous fire in 1997. "You feel pretty confident up there
that you can handle it. You're flying the spacecraft."
Not only should this boost the confidence of the
station crew, it's good training for any eventual mission to Mars
because there will be times when communications is down or difficult
during the much farther voyage, Linenger said.
In the past few weeks the space station had been
purposely simulating communications delays and downtimes to see how
activity could work for a future Mars mission, Byerly said. This was not
part of those tests, but may prove useful, he said.
