Yesterday, NASA's mission control center in Houston lost communication with the International Space Station.
The reason was simple: the power was turned off on the neighboring floor, which resulted in the shutdown of telemetry and voice systems. The blackout lasted 20 minutes, after which communication was restored with the help of the Russian space agency.
This morning, around 8 am Houston time [16:00 Moscow time], there were problems with electricity in the Flight Control Center, as a result of which we lost communication and telemetry with the ISS from Houston. There were no problems on board, the problems were only on Earth. Approximately 20 minutes after the shutdown, we contacted the team through Russian channels, explained what happened. The team and safety equipment were not exposed.
A NASA representative explained that the power outage occurred due to equipment upgrade works.
We knew that such a thing could happen, so we prepared backup channels. They were launched approximately 90 minutes after the incident.