After a longer than anticipated test firing of Russian Soyuz MS-18 rocket thrusters, the International Space Station suddenly tilted. According to a statement by Russia's Roscosmos space agency, personnel aboard the ISS weren't in danger. This was first reported by The New York Times.
After the station lost its positioning control at 5:13 AM ET, ground teams from Roscosmos and NASA were able to regain control within 30 minutes. It was the second such incident on the ISS in the past year. This happened with a craft which is expected to return to Earth Sunday morning.
Oleg Novitsky, a cosmonaut, was testing the engines on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. It is currently docked to the station. According to a NASA spokesperson, the Soyuz thruster continued firing unannouncedly after the engine test was supposed end.
The ISS was reoriented by 45 degrees after thrusters from Russia's Nauka module started firing uncontrollably in July. NASA stated at the time that such incidents are rare and took NASA around an hour to recover control.
Russian film crews went to the ISS to shoot a movie on October 5, and are expected to return to Earth on Sunday morning aboard the Soyuz craft. The thruster incident occurred on Friday. According to The Times, some movies were delayed by the thruster incident. NASA stated that the craft will still undock from the ISS on Saturday, as per plan.
