International Space Station Shifts Orbit to Dodge Russian Space Junk - CNET

In 2021, Russia blew up a defunct Cosmos 1408 outer successful orbit successful a widely condemned rocket test. On Monday night, the International Space Station conducted an avoidance maneuver to steer wide of abstraction junk near down by the test.

"This evening, the International Space Station's Progress 81 thrusters fired for 5 minutes, 5 seconds successful a pre-determined debris avoidance maneuver (PDAM) to supply the analyzable an other measurement of region distant from the predicted way of a fragment of Russian Cosmos 1408 debris," NASA said successful a statement. Progress 81 is simply a Russian cargo trade docked to the ISS. The spacecraft's thrusters tin beryllium utilized to determination the presumption astir successful orbit.

Without the maneuver, the debris fragment was expected to walk wrong 3 miles (5 kilometers) of the station, which would person been excessively adjacent for comfort. The thrusters moved the ISS into a higher-altitude orbit.

NASA head Bill Nelson had called the rocket trial "irresponsible." The ISS unit was forced to instrumentality exigency shelter soon aft the trial was conducted successful 2021. Earlier successful 2022, the European Space Agency's Earth-observing Sentinel-1A outer hardly escaped a collision with Cosmos 1408 debris.

Space junk is simply a worsening problem. The debris tract ranges from nonfunctional full-size satellites to tiny bits of trash. Even tiny pieces tin harm satellites, spacecraft and abstraction stations. Space agencies are perpetually tracking debris truthful corrections tin beryllium made to support abstraction assets safe.

NASA said Monday's repositioning maneuver didn't interaction ISS activities.