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Russia on Thursday restored its communications with the International Space Station and satellites after repairing a cable in Moscow that had been damaged during road works.

"The line of communication has been restored. The system of command is working normally," the spokesman for the Russian space agency Roscosmos Alexei Kuznetsov told state media.

Officials had said the road works on the Shchyolkovsky Highway outside Moscow close to a Roscosmos communications station had ruptured a key cable, forcing Russia to lose contact with most of its satellites and a segment of the ISS.

While Roscomos and NASA insisted that the problem had no impact on the space station, the mishap was a major embarrassment for Russia which has in recent months battled a series of failures in its space programme.

Kuznetsov said that the three outgoing astronauts on the ISS -- Russia's Yury Malenchenko, Sunita Williams of the US and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan -- will be able to return to Earth on schedule on November 19.

They will leave behind on board the crew of Russia's Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin and Kevin Ford of the United States, who will be joined by a new crew on December 19.

Roscosmos sought to play down the loss of communication, a scenario for which the agency's head of human space flight Sergei Krikalyev said the crew was properly prepared.

"The crew trains for this and it's a normal routine to work without communication," he was quoted as saying by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Kuznetsov said that the cable rupture had had no effect on Russia's management of the ISS and satellites.

NASA said that the communications cut was not a unique occurrence and noted that Russia had the ability to communicate with its segment of the ISS through its US partners.

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Russia restores space contact after cable rupture

The shuttle program may have ended in July, but NASA still maintains a crew of astronauts aboard the International Space Station, where they work on cutting-edge technologies like humanoid robots and how spacecrafts can perform autonomous refueling.

But they also spend a lot of time on decidedly consumer-edge tech.For crew staying on the ISS for six months at a time, gadgets like tablets and smartphones can make this remote outpost feel more homey and comfortable. Everyone wants the next newest camera to be brought up, self-funded space tourist Richard Garriott told Wired. He said the everyone on the ISS wanted to play with the Nikon D3X he took there in October of 2008.

Back in June, NASA sent a pair of iPhone 4s up into orbit on the shuttles last trip to the ISS to conduct experiments with some purpose-built apps. Notebook computers and even iPods have made the leap into orbit. And tablets should also be heading up in the near future. This is all about a lot more than simply playing Angry Birds Space in space.

Were attempting to show how a commercial product that millions of people use can function as spaceflight hardware, Brian Rishikof, CEO of Odyssey Space Research, said in June 2011. His company designed a piece of iPhone software called SpaceLab that was used on the iPhones sent up into orbit on the space shuttles final mission last summer. The goal was to see if these $500 devices could replace machines that cost 10 or 100 times as much.

When we approached NASA with the idea, it was novel. They werent sure, Rishikof told Wired. Eventually we got them to cooperate very well, but it took awhile to convince people that these devices had capabilities worth considering.One of the important metrics of flying in space is the mass, and these things are so light and so powerful. Computationally, its probably one of the best performance-based computers out there.

Because of the low mass, if iPhones and iPads were substituted for larger, NASA-designed computer systems, NASA could save on development time and money (rocket fuel aint cheap, you know). Astronauts also get the benefits of an intuitive, well-designed user interface and more modern technology, versus the computers the astronauts now use, which are generally five to 10 years behind the latest consumer tech.

For a computer designed specifically for use on board the space station, odds are very good its not going to be as robust, user friendly, powerful, or convenient as an off-the-shelf piece of technology, Garriott said.

But before they can be approved for space travel,gadgets have to go through a rigorous, generally two-year-long certification process to make sure theyre appropriate for use on board the ISS.When Garriott was preparing for his trip, he wanted to bring his iPod aboard. In order to get it approved, he would have had remove the internal battery, leave it on earth, wire the device to an external battery pack, and wire that back into the iPod to power it. He left the iPod at home.

The biggest thing [with getting consumer tech certified for flight] is safety issues, said Bruce Yost,NASA Small Spacecraft Technology Program manager.For instance the batteries have to be of a certain type so they dont explode or leak. Another issue is determining if a product emits any noxious gases. In the home or office, a plastic product treated with a solvent may give off some fumes that get diluted in the air to safe levels. The reason why there is a sign-off process is that once youre in orbit, youre in an extremely closed ecosystem, Garriott said. The livable area of the space station is about the size of a five-bedroom house, and air gets recycled. The space stations systems may not be able to successfully cleanse certain chemicals out of the air supply.

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Gadgets in Space : What It Takes to Get an iPad Into Orbit

Josh Hopkins of Lockheed Martin made a presentation to the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) study group about telerobotic exploration of the far side of the moon from a deep space station deployed at the Earth/moon L2 point.

The presentation, which took place on Nov. 14, represents the position of Lockheed Martin and not necessarily NASA, though it does provide several arguments for using the deep space station as a remote base for lunar exploration. A slide presentation and an audio of the talk are available.

Timeline for L2 lunar far side missions

The presentation envisions missions to the Earth/moon L2, where the gravities of the Earth and moon cancel out above the lunar far side, to be part of an overall exploration program aimed at Earth-approaching asteroids, culminating in a mission to the Martian moon Deimos and telerobotic operations of the Martian surface from there. The first flight to the Earth/moon L2, by the end of the current decade, would be conducted by an Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle alone and would last for 30 days. Subsequent missions would involve a deep space station to be deployed in a "halo orbit" around the Earth/moon L2 and would last several months.

Science rationale for L2 lunar far side missions

The presentation suggests two types of telerobotic missions to the lunar far side, controlled by astronauts at an L2 deep space station. One would be a sample return mission from the lunar far side, the better to understand the early history of the solar system which featured heavy bombardment of the moon. The samples would be gathered by teleoperated robots, taken to the deep space station, and then returned to Earth via the Orion.

Another would be the deployment of a radio telescope instrument directly on the lunar surface. Since the lunar far side is blocked from electromagnetic emissions from the Earth, it represents a radio "quiet zone" that is beneficial to radio astronomy.

Communications latency

The presentation suggests that telerobotic operations would benefit from a deep space station at the L2 point because of reduced communications latency, i.e. the time it takes for a command to be sent to a robot on the lunar surface. The time is 3.5 seconds from the Earth as opposed to .4 seconds from L2. This position disputes the analysis of Paul Spudis, who suggests that the difference does not provide any significant advantage.

Practice for deep space missions

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Lockheed Martin Provides Plan/Rationale for Earth/Moon L2 Deep Space Station

Officials had said the road works on the Shchyolkovsky Highway outside Moscow close to a Roscosmos communications station had ruptured a key cable, forcing Russia to lose contact with most of its satellites and a segment of the ISS.

While Roscosmos and NASA insisted that the problem had no impact on the space station, the mishap was a major embarrassment for Russia which has in recent months battled a series of failures in its space programme.

Kuznetsov said that the three outgoing astronauts on the ISS Russia's Yury Malenchenko, Sunita Williams of the US and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan will be able to return to Earth on schedule on November 19.

Roscosmos sought to play down the loss of communication, a scenario for which the agency's head of human space flight Sergei Krikalyev said the crew was properly prepared.

"The crew trains for this and it's a normal routine to work without communication," he was quoted as saying by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Kuznetsov said that the cable rupture had had no effect on Russia's management of the ISS and satellites.

NASA said that the communications cut was not a unique occurrence and noted that Russia had the ability to communicate with its segment of the ISS through its US partners.

Interfax said on Wednesday that several vehicles from the Akado company that operates the communications cable had located the site of the tear about six hours after the incident on Wednesday.

Source: AFP

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Russia restores contact with International Space Station after cable rupture