The six astronauts aboard the International Space Station can rest easy: Full power has been restored to the orbiting laboratory.
Electrical problems left the space station running on about 75% its normal power supply, delaying SpaceX’s latest uncrewed resupply mission to the ISS.
The rocket company was supposed to drop off a bundle of hardware and supplies this week. But the launch was called off as the crew worked to restore the station’s full power supply. The space station’s crew was not in immediate danger, NASA said in a blog post.
NASA announced Thursday that its efforts to replace a piece of failed electrical equipment were successful, the space agency said in a blog post.
SpaceX had been lined up to begin its delayed cargo mission on Friday at 3:11 am ET, but there was another setback. An electrical issue forced the company to push it back by nearly 24 hours to 2:48 am ET on Saturday.
Parts of the football field-sized space station lost power on Monday, but the crew was able to keep the lights on and continue running experiments by rerouting power from other lines while they worked to restore full functionality, NASA said in a Tuesday statement. The ISS team replaced a piece of hardware that routes the power generated by solar panels all over the station. And everything was working normally again by Thursday morning.
NASA did not want SpaceX’s Dragon 1 — the spacecraft that is supposed to carry cargo on Friday —