Three-Hour Power Failure Puts Some Space Station Tests on Hold

Science experiments on the International Space Station survived a weekend power failure, NASA said Monday.

For three hours Sunday all heavy power systems aboard the Russian service module and most of the systems aboard the U.S. laboratory module were shut down after the failure of a Russian cooling system that keeps on-board electronics from overheating.

The three astronauts in the station were never in danger or seriously inconvenienced, NASA said.

But some critical experiments, including ones that involve detailed measurements and plant growth, were shut down. All of the experiments were running again Monday.

A NASA spokesman said the fast response of the crew and ground managers prevented any damage to the multimillion-dollar science experiments as a result of the power outage.