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Updated November 16th, 2021 at 16:32 IST

ISS astronauts take refuge in docked spacecrafts due to satellite debris

All seven astronauts aboard the ISS were forced to take refuge in the Russian Soyuz MS-19 and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft due to an approaching space debris

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
International Space Station
Image: Twitter/@Roscosmos | Image:self
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All seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were forced to take refuge in the Russian Soyuz MS-19 and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft as the ISS passed through space debris on Monday. According to multiple media reports, the encounter occurred at 8:20 pm (IST) although the situation is under control and the space station has entered the green zone, Roscosmos confirmed in a Twitter update. 

"The  @Space_Station crew is routinely performing operations according to the flight program. The orbit of the object, which forced the crew today to move into spacecraft according to standard procedures, has moved away from the ISS orbit. The station is in the green zone", Roscosmos tweeted.

Russian astronaut Anton Shkaplerov, who reached the space station in October with a film crew, also confirmed the normality and said that they have resumed their operations in space. “Friends, everything is regular with us! We continue to work according to the program”, Shkaplerov wrote in his tweet.

This comes even after the ISS was forced to change its orbit on November 12, due to the approaching debris that was initally assumed to have emerged from a Chinese satellite. According to a report earlier presented by Space.com, Space Station program manager Joel Montalbano had informed that scientists are tracking the flying debris and will perform a debris avoidance maneuver six hours before NASA's Crew-3 launch. The ISS was inhabited by three astronauts - Mark Vande Hei from NASA and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov when reports about the debris emerged. Later four more astronauts - Raja Chari, Tom Mashburn, Kayla Barron and Matthias Maurer joined the trio on November 11.

The debris cloud emerged after a Russian anti-satellite missile test

New reports have suggested that the debris cloud which forced the astronauts to take shelter in the docked spacecrafts resulted from an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test that Russia allegedly performed on November 15. US officials have slammed the Russian Federation for its “irresponsible and destabilizing action” that will pose threats to the space station even in the future. U.S. Department of State spokesperson Ned Price said in a press briefing as per Space.com that “the test has so far generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris that now threaten the interests of all nations”. 

According to an official release, NASA administrator Bill Nelson criticised Russia saying, “Like Secretary Blinken, I’m outraged by this irresponsible and destabilizing action. With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts. Their actions are reckless and dangerous, threatening as well the Chinese space station and the taikonauts on board.”

Reportedly, the debris is still floating in space and the space station has to pass through it every 90 minutes. “NASA will continue monitoring the debris in the coming days and beyond to ensure the safety of our crew", Nelson said.

The menace of space debris

The space junk that forced the football field-sized space station to change its orbit was once part of the Chinese weather satellite, Fengyun-1C that was launched in May 1999. However, the Chinese military dismantled it with a sub-orbital missile five years after it stopped functioning in 2002. Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who briefed about the satellite in a thread of tweets, had revealed that the blast tore the satellite into thousands of pieces and currently, 2,737 pieces of the dead satellites are orbiting the Earth at bullet speed.

Image: Twitter/@Roscosmos

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Published November 15th, 2021 at 22:22 IST

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