Mission Extended to Fix Space Station Computer

Jun 14, 07:04 PM

Current Headlines: Russian computers that control the international space station's orientation and oxygen and water supplies were partly working again last night.

But NASA astronauts, who are working to fix the computers which failed on Wednesday, may still have to extend their stay at the station if they aren't fundctioning properly by next week.

Since the computers failure, thrusters on the docked space shuttle have been fired periodically to help maintain the space station's positioning. Long term the space station needs the computer-controlled maneuvering thrusters for docking and avoiding space debris.

NASA managers hoped to have the computers fully up before Atlantis and its seven crew members undock from the space station next Tuesday.

Flight controllers in Moscow were able to re-establish some communication with the computers overnight, and Russian engineers were working yesterday to restore the rest of the system.

Officials with NASA and the Russian space agency still don't know why the computers went down. They say they had never seen that type of failure on the space station before, and they believe it may be related to electrical power rather than computer software.

If the space mission is extended it would be the second time extra days are added to the astronauts stay in space - Atlantis' mission was originally scheduled for 11 days but has been extended by two days already so that astronauts could go on a spacewalk to repair a thermal blanket covering an engine pod that peeled up during launch.

Space station program manager Mike Suffredini said he expected the problem to be fixed in the next couple of days.

Agencies

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