Japanese quake disrupts JAXA space station operations

The deadly 8.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan Friday ravaged the country's JAXA International Space Station control centre in Tsukuba and forced NASA to take over the lab's Japanese systems, according to an agency spokesperson.

Damage inside the Japanese Tsukuba mission control centre

This photo of the Tsukuba Space Center's control centre shows debris littering the floor and filing cabinets tipped over. Other reports indicated part of a roof may have collapsed at the space centre, which is about 30 miles northeast of central Tokyo.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) did not post any updates on its website after the tremor, other than saying public tours of its facilities in affected areas were terminated until further notice.

NASA says the mission control center in Houston took over monitoring telemetry from the space station's Kibo laboratory and the H-2 Transfer Vehicle, a robotic cargo ship that delivered supplies to the outpost in January.

"JAXA did a nominal shutdown of all of its payloads on the station before the team evacuated (Tsukuba)," said Kelly Humphries, a NASA spokesperson. "NASA and other (international partner) research going on in the Kibo laboratory is continuing unfettered."

NASA has previously relocated its mission control operations from Houston when hurricanes have beared down on the Johnson Space Center.

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