It ’s been an eventful week on the International Space Station ( ISS ) . First , a spacewalk was cancel when coolant waterspread everywherein the airlock . Then astronauts had to take shelter in the ballistic capsule they used to journey into space because of a report of potentially dangerous space dust go up .
The cause of the debris was a defunct artificial satellite breach up . Resurs - P1 was a Russian commercial-grade Earth observation artificial satellite that work until 2021 , when it was decommissioned due to a failure of onboard equipment . It had not been designed withdeorbitingin mind , so it passively continued to orbit at about 355 klick ( 221 naut mi ) above our head . It would have finally turn a loss height and burn up , but something else chance on Wednesday .
The satellite broke aside into what is estimated to be over 100 objet d’art of traceable dust , according to satellite tracking serviceLeoLabs . Their orbit is not tight to the ISS , which orbits at an height between 413 and 422 kilometers ( 257 and 262 miles ) . Still , some of the debris might stop up crossing the path of the ISS , so it was decided to shelter the spaceman as a precaution .
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“ Beginning around 8:45 p.m. EDT on Wednesday , June 26 NASA instruct gang aboard the space post to shelter in their various space vehicle as a stock precautional measure after it was informed of a satellite gap - up at an height near the place ’s earlier Wednesday . Mission Control continued to monitor the itinerary of the debris , and after about an hour , the work party was cleared to give-up the ghost their ballistic capsule and the post resume normal operations , ” NASA compose in ablog post .
On Thursday good afternoon , LeoLabs reported at least 180 piece of dust being tracked , with the number look to grow . It is unclear what has caused the sudden breakage apart of the planet , but LeoLabs hopes to be able-bodied to discern a suit .
It is possible that another piece of blank space detritus hit Resurs - P1 , leading to the production of a swarm of debris . Resurs - P1 is not a little object ; it is some the size of it of a van . A caravan moving at 8 km ( 5 miles ) per secondly . Even a small object hitting it would have a pile of impulse and do a lot of damage .
blank space junk hit is a serious business concern , as it might lead to theKessler Syndrome , a cascade of debris that causes other debris , make a specific orbital area inaccessible . There is a strong push for satellite to have a deorbiting plan now to avoid just this form of state of affairs .
