There was an alarm on the International Space Station (ISS) due to the dissolution of a Russian satellite whose parts I considered potentially threatening to the station. Thus, the astronauts on the station were forced to seek refuge in their spacecraft.
The Russian satellite has broken into more than 100 pieces, the US space agency said. There were no immediate details on what caused the breakup of the Russian Earth observation satellite RESURS-P1, which is set to be decommissioned in 2022. The US space agency said today there was no immediate threat as it monitored the debris cluster.
The incident occurred on Wednesday, the Space Administration said. It happened in orbit near the space station, forcing the American astronauts on board to take refuge in their spacecraft for about an hour, NASA’s space station office said.
Radars from U.S. space tracking company LeoLabs detected the satellite releasing several fragments, the company said. The U.S. space agency, which has its own global network of space-based detection radars, said the satellite immediately generated “more than 100 pieces of detectable debris.”
Worry
Major events that create orbital debris are rare, but they are a growing concern as space becomes filled with satellite networks vital to everyday life on Earth, from broadband internet and communications to basic navigation services.
Russia sparked international outrage in 2021 when it hit one of its decommissioned satellites in orbit with a ground-based anti-satellite missile, creating thousands of debris to test a weapons system ahead of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The prospect of satellite-to-satellite conflicts and space warfare has added urgency to calls by space advocates and lawyers for countries to create an international mechanism to manage space traffic, which currently does not exist.
Naftemporiki.gr with information from APE-MPE