Space station loses power channel, backup working

The International Space Station is featured in this image photographed by an STS-132 crew member on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis after the station and shuttle began their post-undocking relative separation. 

Credit: NASA/Crew of STS-132

The International Space Station is down one power channel because of an electrical malfunction but NASA says everyone and everything is safe up there.

Mission Control says one of eight power channels went down Thursday because of an apparent trip in an electrical switch.

Most of the station systems that depend on that power line immediately switched to a backup. Within an hour, flight controllers moved the remaining systems to the backup power channel.

NASA is trying to determine what happened and how to fix it. Meanwhile, all space station systems are operating normally.

Officials say the problem will not affect Tuesday's departure by three of the six astronauts. An American, Japanese and Russian will return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule following a half-year mission.