June 22, 2007.  S.P. Korolev RSC Energia,
Korolev, Moscow Region

RSC Energia President and Designer General N.N. Sevastiyanov thanks the Corporation specialists who took part in the ISS off-nominal situation recovery effort for their high level of professionalism and dedication to work.

On June 11, 2007, during deployment and connection of new solar array panels on the US orbital segment of the International Space Station (ISS), some glitches occurred in the Russian Segment (RS) on-board computers (made by ESA). As a result of this, on July 13 the control of ISS RS on-board systems was completely lost. It was the first time that so critical a situation arose on-board ISS. This off-nominal situation was fraught with the danger of loosing the space station. Our US colleagues even considered evacuation in case the computer system wouldn’t recover.
In this difficult situation, RSC Energia President and Designer General, the Technical Manager for flight tests of manned space systems N.N. Sevastiyanov established and headed a task force to analyze the situation and develop technical steps towards recovery. The task force included Corporation’s experts such as RSC Energia vice presidents V.A. Soloviev, R.M. Samitov, N.A. Brukhanov, S.K. Krikalev, the chairman of the scientific and technical council V.N. Branets, as well as specialists form scientific centers. The task force developed a plan of activities aimed at identifying the causes of the glitches in the on-board computers and developing methods for recovery from this difficult situation. Three days of hard and unceasing work produced positive results – the functioning of the ISS RS on-board computers was restored.
An analysis of the situation has shown that it was caused by a failure in the secondary power supply sources of the computers resulting from exposure to electromagnetic noise. At present, the computers have been brought back on line by the ISS crew using a contingency power supply configuration that was developed on short notice by RSC Energia specialists. Four ISS RS on-board computers are providing support to all the nominal operating modes, while the other two are in cold standby mode. To completely restore the on-board computer operation, it is now planned to deliver some additional hardware to ISS on the next Russian logistics spacecraft Progress M-61. With this in mind the task force came up with a proposal to launch the logistics spacecraft on July 23, 2007, two weeks earlier than the originally scheduled date.
At the International aerospace show at Le Bourget (France), NASA Administrator M. Griffin expressed his gratitude to RSC Energia specialists and thanked N.N. Sevastiyanov personally for the successfully completed ISS rescue operation.