ISS Narrowly Avoids Space Debris in Orbit

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) had to fire up the orbital outpost's thrusters on Saturday, January 28, in order to ensure that the facility is not impacted by a set of space debris. The orbital junk were produced by a Chinese military test that took place back in 2007.

The Asian nation conducted the test in order to demonstrate that it has the ability to target satellites in orbit. The Chinese selected one of their own satellites, and shut it down using a laser beam. The test broke the satellite apart in 3,000+ small pieces, which are now littering several orbits.

On Saturday, the ISS was passing through one of these orbits, and Mission Control deemed it to be in danger of suffering important damage if it continued on its previously established course and speed.

This is not the first time the station needs to be maneuvered out of its orbit on account of debris from the Fengyun 1C satellite. Over the past 4 years or so, the ISS had to change its orbit several times, of which many were on account of these debris clouds.

On January 28, Mission Control used the rocket thrusters built into the Russian Zvezda service module. The 1-minute, 40-second burn began at 6:50 pm EST (2350 GMT), and ensured that the ISS was taken sufficiently high to avoid any chances of being hit.

After the burn, the ISS was placed on an orbit about 251 miles (404 kilometers) above the surface of the planet. The pizza box-shaped security zone around the station extends for 15 miles (25 kilometers) on either side, and for about half a mile (750 meters) above and below, Space reports.

An orbital dodging maneuver is carried out every time an object threatens to penetrate this security zone. The main issue here is that the station is traveling at around 17,500 miles (28,164 kilometers) per hour, which means that any potential impact could be catastrophic.

The new maneuver was therefore “designed to place the station at the correct altitude and trajectory for future visiting vehicle activities and to avoid a repetitive coincidence of possible conjunctions with a piece of Chinese Fengyun 1C satellite debris,” an update released by NASA says.

This is just the latest in a series of instances where space junk is threatening the ISS or other satellites orbiting around Earth. Several studies are currently being conducted, as scientists are trying to determine the best possible way of unclogging space routes around the planet.