One of the International Space Station’s computers has malfunctioned, Russia’s space agency has announced.

Roscosmos said one of three computers in the station’s Russian module has failed.

It said Russian flight controllers plan to reboot it on Thursday ahead of the arrival of a spaceship called Progress later this month.

The agency emphasised that the computer problem would not affect the station’s crew, which is made up of Nasa’s Serena Aunon-Chancellor, Russian Sergei Prokopyev and German Alexander Gerst.


Spaced out: weed could be grown on the Space Station (Getty)

It said two other computers can maintain the station’s operation.

The glitch follows last month’s aborted launch of a new station crew.



Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin landed safely after their Russian booster rocket failed two minutes into the October 11 flight.

The next crew is set to be launched in early December.

Several Nasa spacecraft have suffered glitches or been shut down recently.

Last month, it fixed the Hubble Space Telescope using the time-honoured method of switching it off and on again.

However, the same trick does not appear to have revived Opportunity, a Mars Rover which was lost in a storm which engulfed the entire surface of the Red Planet.

In September, Nasa announced that a small hole had been found on one of a pair of Soyuz spacecraft attached to the orbiting base.

It was initially thought to have been caused by an impact with a meteorite, but now investigators later suggested it may have been the result of deliberate sabotage.