According to the Russian state agency TASS, Russian and American crew members on the International Space Station (ISS) were forced to take refuge on Monday morning when space debris flew over the modular space station the size of a football field twice.
American astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Russian astronauts Anton Shkaplerov and Peter Dubrov were ordered to transfer to the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft, while the American astronauts astronaut Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron and Matthias Maurer of Germany moved to Crew Dragon after a piece of space debris was expected to fly over the International Space Station.
The TASS news agency quoted a report from the Russian Space Agency that the space junk is expected to fly over the International Space Station at 10:06 am Moscow time and will fly over the International Space Station again from 11:38 am to 11:44 am Moscow time on Monday.
“according to [NASA] Roscosmos said that at the Mission Control Center in Houston, the space station will soon enter a corridor that may be close to space debris objects.
After the first anticipated incident, the crew was allowed to return to the International Space Station, but was transferred shortly afterwards.
Russian astronaut Dubrov said in the live broadcast: “The Soyuz crew is on the ship, the hatch is on, and we are ready.” NASAWebsite.
An official from NASA’s Houston Mission Control Center said in the latest news that the space debris “has passed.” Dubrov noted that the crew did not notice “any signs” of collisions with space debris.
The Russian Space Agency stated that if a “potentially dangerous object” approaches the International Space Station, the crew must go to the docked ship to take refuge.
Since then, all crew members have been allowed to return to the International Space Station.
A total of about 30 incidents involving space junk required the International Space Station to take evasive actions, of which three occurred last year. The International Space Station is the largest inhabited space station and has been in orbit for 23 years.
last weekDebris of the Fengyun-1C weather satellite destroyed by China’s anti-satellite missile test in 2007 International Space StationThis incident forced the station to change its orbit urgently.
“In order to avoid’space junk’, (mission control) experts…have calculated how to correct the orbit of the International Space Station,” Roscosmos said.
It is not clear what space debris flew over the International Space Station twice on Monday.
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