Posted on 09/23/2020 1:16:44 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The International Space Station just dodged a fast-moving hunk of orbiting junk.
Controllers maneuvered the station away from a potential collision with a piece of debris today (Sept. 22) at 5:19 p.m. EDT (2119 GMT). They did so by firing the thrusters on a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft that's docked to the orbiting lab's Zvezda service module, NASA officials said in an update today.
The three astronauts currently living aboard the station — NASA's Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner — sheltered in the station's Russian segment during the maneuver to be closer to their Soyuz spacecraft, the NASA update stated.
At the International Space Station's altitude, roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) up, material zooms around Earth at about 17,500 mph (28,200 kph) — so fast that a collision with even a tiny shard of debris could do serious damage to the orbiting lab.
Hence today's evasive action. The 150-second-long Progress burn boosted the station above the trajectory of the unknown piece of debris, which would have taken the junk within 0.86 miles (1.39 kilometers) of the orbiting lab at 6:21 p.m. EDT (2221 GMT), the NASA update stated.
Junk-dodging maneuvers are far from unheard of for the orbiting lab. The station has now made three such moves in 2020 alone, Bridenstine said today in another tweet, stressing that "debris is getting worse!"
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Space is becoming like Mt. Everest
“Duck!”
Did they ever find and fix their air leak?
“material zooms around Earth at about 17,500 mph (28,200 kph) — so fast that a collision with even a tiny shard of debris could do serious damage to the orbiting lab.”
Misleading and mostly untrue.
Curious if anyone knows... is the only viable response to duck or go over the debris? Could a side-ways maneuver suffice to avoid it?
make that ‘uninhabitable’, of course.
Well, if it puts her in shirt shorts, it works for me: 
“Red Alert! Shields up”
I agree, misleading. The station is also in orbit. Relative speed depends on inclination and eccentricity of the junk’s orbit vs the station’s.
They’re in orbit, not just floating out there. Sideways means changing orbital inclination, which is costly in terms of fuel, and causes other issues. A simple burn to raise apogee can be done at perigee, and doesn’t cost much fuel for the Progress craft.
If we really had “global warming”, the atmosphere would expand a bit, creating drag on lower orbit stuff, and bring it down.
Don’t they have a force field?
I’d marry it.
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