Astronaut Danny Olivas pushes in pins to repair a thermal blanket tear outside Atlantis. (AP)

Houston, June 16 (Reuters): Nasa reported major progress on glitches in a critical computer system on the International Space Station yesterday as astronauts repaired insulation damage to the space shuttle Atlantis during a spacewalk.

Four of the six boxes or“lanes” that comprise the computer were up and running, raising hopes they would not break down again.

“They do appear to be working,” Nasa space station program manager Mike Suffredini told a press briefing late yesterday.

He said the computers, which are in the Russian segment of the $100 billion space station, would be left up and running through the night but controllers would need 24 to 48 hours to determine if they were reliable.

He said the Russians had bypassed circuits on the computers which appeared to be causing the problems. The space shuttle will likely bring the two that are still malfunctioning back to Earth with it and the Russians will then bring replacements up on a later mission of their own.

Yesterday’s news was by far the most encouraging since the computers crashed on Wednesday.

The computers control the station’s positioning in space so it can draw power from the Sun, maintain proper temperature and position antennas for communicating with ground controllers.