Space: February 21, 2002

Archives

The International Space Station went into an uncontrolled mode on 4 Feb when the Russian-built computer that handles navigation data lost two of its three data streams. The station went into free drift and rolled, which meant that the solar panels were no longer facing the sun and the communications antennae were no longer facing their ground stations. The crew went into manual mode, "flying" the station and manually pointing its arrays and antennae, until the computer could be restarted several hours later.--Stephen V Cole

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contribute. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   contribute   Close