During the night of Wednesday June 12 to Thursday June 13, Internet users became concerned after the inadvertent broadcast of a sequence in which we understand that an astronaut, visibly affected by decompression sickness, needs emergency help.
More fear than harm. Right in the middle livestream of NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) on YouTube, the viewing of hundreds of Internet users was interrupted after the accidental broadcast of a medical exercise on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, June 13, reports an article in the British daily The Guardian.
At half past midnight Paris time, the images gave way to a message stating that the transmission had been “temporarily interrupted” and that the video would return when the “connection would be reestablished”. Shortly after, a person appearing to be communicating with the crew aboard the station began giving advice on how to rescue a “commanding officer” affected by decompression sickness – a serious emergency caused by the formation of gas bubbles in the blood due to a rapid decrease in atmospheric pressure – which can affect the nervous system or, in the worst case, lead to death . “Before you seal, close the visor and pressurize the suit, I would like you to check his pulse one last time,” asked the speaker, who identified herself as a flight doctor working at SpaceX’s Mission Control Center in Hawthorne, California.
Viewers’ concern is at its peak, as the astronaut’s state of health appears to be deteriorating. “I fear there are serious signs of decompression sickness… Unfortunately, the commander’s life is in jeopardy,” continued the anonymous aerospace doctor. Quickly, several popular space accounts drew attention to the incident on social media, with one calling it a“odd” And “disturbing”. Eric Berger, editor-in-chief of the publication specializing in tech Ars Technicaeven called the show “frankly frightening”, when many other vigilant netizens noted that it was probably a drill.
“There is no emergency situation on board the ISS”
The trouble was soon afterward eased by NASA itself. The ISS account of the American space agency recognized on X (formerly Twitter) that“There is no emergency situation on board the ISS”. “Audio was inadvertently diverted from an ongoing simulation in which crew members and ground crews train for various scenarios in space and is not linked to a real emergency”, she clarified. At the time of the hiccup, the crew members were then “during sleep”. “All stay healthy and safe,” concluded NASA.
Information confirmed by SpaceX on “test” which took place in California.
