Astronauts take cover as defunct Russian satellite splits into nearly 200 pieces | International Space Station

A defunct Russian satellite disintegrated into more than 100 pieces of debris in orbit, forcing astronauts to International Space Station to lodge for about an hour and add to the mass of space junk already in orbit, US space agencies said.

There were no immediate details of what caused the breakup of the Russian Earth observation satellite Resurs-P1, which Russia pronounced dead in 2022

US space Command, which is tracking the swarm of debris, said there was no immediate threat to other satellites.

The event happened around 10 a.m. Mountain Time (1600 GMT) on Wednesday, the Space Command said. It happened in orbit near the space station, prompting the American astronauts on board to hide in their spacecraft for about an hour, NASA’s space station office said.

Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, which operates the satellite, did not respond to a request for comment or publicly acknowledge the event on its social media channels.

The US Space Command, which has a global network of space tracking radars, said the satellite immediately produced “over 100 pieces of trackable debris”.

By Thursday afternoon, U.S. space tracking firm LeoLabs’ radars had detected at least 180 pieces, the company said.

Large events that generate debris in orbit are rare, but are a growing concern as space becomes crowded with satellite networks vital to everyday life on Earth, from broadband internet and communications to basic navigation services, as well as satellites that no longer operate. they use.

The breakup of the satellite was at an altitude of approximately 220 miles (355 km) in low Earth orbit, a popular region where thousands of small to large satellites operate.

“Due to the low orbit of this debris cloud, we estimate it will be weeks to months before the hazard passes,” LeoLabs said in a statement to Reuters.

An estimated 25,000 pieces of debris larger than 4 inches (10 cm) in space caused by satellite explosions or collisions have raised concerns about the prospect of a Kessler effect, a phenomenon in which collisions of a satellite with debris can create a cascading field of more dangerous junk and exponentially increase the risks of crashes.

Russia drew strong criticism from the US and other Western countries in 2021 when it hit one of its defunct satellites in orbit with a ground-based anti-satellite (SAT) missile launched from its Plesetsk missile site. The explosion testing a weapons system before Moscow in 2022 invasion of Ukrainecreated thousands of pieces of orbital debris.

In the roughly 88-minute window of Resurs-P1’s initial breakup, the Plesetsk pad was one of many places on Earth it passed over, but there was no immediate indication from airspace or maritime signals that Russia had fired a missile to hit the satellite. said Jonathan McDowell, a space explorer and astronomer at Harvard.

“I find it hard to believe that they would use such a large satellite as an Assat target,” McDowell said. “But with the Russians these days, who knows.”

He and other analysts speculated that the breakup was more likely caused by a problem with the satellite, such as residual fuel on board causing an explosion.

What happens to the old satellites

Dead satellites either remain in orbit until they descend into Earth’s atmosphere for a fiery death years later, or, in widely favored—but less common—circumstances, fly to a “graveyard orbit” about 22,400 miles (36,000 km) from Earth to reduce the risk of collision with active satellites.

Roscosmos decommissioned Resurs-P1 due to onboard equipment failure in 2021, announcing the decision the following year. Since then, the satellite appears to be lowering its altitude through layers of other active satellites for eventual re-entry into the atmosphere.

The six American astronauts currently on the space station were alerted by NASA’s mission control in Houston around 9:00 p.m. ET Wednesday (01:00 GMT Thursday) to perform “safe haven” procedures ‘, in which each crew member rushes to the spacecraft they arrived on in case an emergency exit is necessary.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams boarded their Starliner spacecraft, the Boeing-built capsule that has been docked since June 6 on its first manned test mission to the station.

Three of the other American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut entered SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which took them to the station in March, while the sixth American astronaut joined the other two astronauts in their Russian Soyuz capsule, which took them there last September.

The astronauts exited their spacecraft approximately an hour later and resumed normal operations at the station, NASA said.

The prospect of satellite collisions and space warfare has added urgency to calls by space advocates and lawyers to get countries to create an international mechanism to manage space traffic, which currently does not exist.