The crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) Thursday reported that smoke alarms went off in the Russian segment of orbiting laboratory, and the crew reported seeing smoke and smelling burned plastic. Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said the incident took place in the Russian-built Zvezda module and occurred as the station’s batteries were being recharged. The smell reportedly wafted from the Russian module into the module operated by the U.S. space agency NASA. Roscosmos said the crew activated air filters and returned to their normal schedule once the air quality was back to normal. It was unclear what caused the smoke. Russian Cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov proceeded with their scheduled six-hour spacewalk to continue integrating the Russian-built Nauka science lab that docked with the space station in July. Shortly after docking, the lab briefly knocked the orbital outpost out of position by accidentally firing its engines — an incident Russian space officials blamed on a software failure. The space station is also occupied by NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
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