By: NPR
October 26, 2022
The International Space Station had to fire its thrusters this week to make sure it avoided space junk in orbit around Earth.
The station fired its thrusters for 5 minutes and 5 seconds in what NASA called a “Pre-Determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver” at 8:25 p.m. ET Monday to increase its distance from a piece of what used to be a Russian satellite.
NASA says the maneuver increased the ISS’ altitude between 0.2 and 0.8 of a mile. Without the move, the satellite debris would have come within about 3 miles of the space station.
The fragment in question was from Russia’s Cosmos 1408 satellite. Russia destroyed it with a missile in November 2021, creating 1,500 pieces of debris, according to NASA. U.S. officials condemned the anti-satellite missile test, saying it would create hundreds of thousands more pieces of debris in the coming years.