The International Space Station (ISS) was recently moved into a higher orbit to avoid collisions with space debris. The evasion maneuver was performed using propulsion from a ‘Progress’ capsule docked to the ISS, NASA said.
“The engines of ‘Progress 89′ (a Russian supply capsule) fired for five minutes and 31 seconds today at 2:09 PM CST to raise the ISS’ orbit and provide additional distance to a piece of space debris originating from an defective spaceship. satellite, which disintegrated in 2015,” said a statement posted Tuesday on the website of the US space agency NASA.
According to their information, the Pre-determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver (PDAM for short) was carried out in coordination with NASA, its Russian counterpart Roskosmos and the other partners of the ISS space station.
Evasive maneuvers are becoming increasingly necessary
Without the maneuver, experts estimate that the piece of space debris would have come within about two and a half miles (the equivalent of four kilometers) of the ISS. Such evasive maneuvers are not uncommon: a December 2022 NASA analysis found that the ISS has performed evasive maneuvers as many as 32 times since 1999.
That number has increased since then — for example, in March 2023, the ISS was dodging space debris twice a week — and the number will continue to rise as low Earth orbit becomes more populated with satellites and debris, such as space junk. B. Disused rocket stages are overcrowded.
Scrap metal makes space travel increasingly dangerous
Debris from disused satellites and the remains of old rockets make space travel increasingly dangerous, especially near Earth. Even small, sharp-edged splinters can tear menacing holes in spaceships or destroy probes. Without countermeasures, experts fear that space flights will at some point no longer be possible given the thousands of fragments.
Source: Krone
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