The space station just undertook evasive maneuvers to avoid colossal space debris

Humanity has a serious problem with space debris.

On the evening of October 24, NASA announced a maneuver to give the International Space Station “an extra measure of separation” from a piece of debris (whose size was not given) passing just a few kilometers away. The debris comes from Russia’s dubious decision (according to leading space debris experts) to blow up its roughly 4,850-pound Russian satellite Cosmos 1408 with a rocket in late 2021. The explosion created a new ring of debris around the earth.

“We will see the consequences of this particular event for decades to come,” Hugh Lewis, a professor of astronautics at the University of Southampton who studies space debris, told Mashable last year. “It wasn’t a good result. It would never be a good result.”

“There was no worse goal to aim for with respect for human spaceflight,” added Lewis.

NASA, whose chief Bill Nelson said he was “outraged by this irresponsible and destabilizing action,” is now grappling with the relatively new, problematic space debris.

To move the ISS, the space station fired thrusters from Russia’s Progress 81 spacecraft (attached to the station) for just over five minutes. NASA air traffic controllers oversee and direct the station’s activities at ISS Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Russia operates its Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev, which is outside of Moscow.

“The engine fire occurred at 20:25 EDT and the maneuver had no impact on station operations. Without the maneuver, it was predicted that the fragment could have been within about three miles of the station,” the US space agency said in a statement. The move was dubbed a “predetermined debris avoidance maneuver.”

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The growing problem with space debris is that it can create more and more debris. As Mashable previously reported:

The emerging problem is that space junk spawns more space junk, specifically by increasing the likelihood of more collisions. In 2009, for example, the defunct Russian satellite Cosmos 2251 crashed into an Iridium communications satellite, leaving in its wake approximately 2,000 pieces of debris at least 4 inches in size and countless tiny fragments. In 2013, astronaut Chris Hadfield discovered a “bullet hole” in a space station’s solar panel — either from space debris or a small meteorite. Humanity has already dumped large amounts of debris into Earth orbit, and the impact is severe and growing. “Worn out rockets, satellites and other space debris have accumulated in orbit, increasing the likelihood of a collision with other debris,” NASA wrote in 2016.

If enough debris eventually accumulates over the next three or four decades, there will be a runaway cascade of collisions, an extreme event dubbed “Kessler’s syndrome”. In 2018, Kessler expressed his concerns to Mashable about SpaceX’s plans to launch thousands of Starlink satellites into Earth orbit. The private space company has already launched over 1,800 satellites and plans to add thousands more. SpaceX has plans to deorbit faulty or old satellites into Earth’s atmosphere, but the sheer number of satellites still means there are many objects flying around the planet. In addition to other megasatellite constellations, Amazon also plans to launch over 3,200 satellites.

Ideally, decaying satellites and spacecraft are managed so that they gradually fall into the atmosphere and burn up, in a process known as atmospheric drag. NASA and its space partners will continue to grapple with the debris left by the blown up Cosmos 1408 satellite.

“This debris field will grow and expand in a ring around Earth that will likely remain in orbit to threaten other space objects for years to come.”

“This debris field will grow and expand in a ring around Earth that is likely to remain in orbit threatening other space objects for years to come,” said the Secure World Foundation, an organization committed to a sustainable and peaceful use of outer space. said in a statement last year. “Regardless of the rationale, to intentionally create space debris of this magnitude is utterly irresponsible.”