On June 27, nine astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) quickly moved to three spacecraft after a satellite broke apart in orbit. NASA announced that the incident occurred at 1:00 a.m. GMT, which is also the time zone the ISS operates in. The astronauts may have been sleeping at the time of the incident.
NASA did not identify the satellite, but satellite monitoring company LeoLabs identified a debris event involving a non-functional Russian satellite, Resurs-P1. This event created over 100 pieces of trackable debris. Resurs-P1 was launched in 2013 and had been operating beyond its expected lifespan. The increasing amount of space junk in orbit is becoming a growing concern for agencies like NASA and NORAD.
NASA works with the US military to monitor space around the ISS and takes precautions to ensure the safety of the station and astronauts. The space station may need to move if debris larger than 5 cm enters its orbit. LibraryThing, joker123motobola, and other sites mentioned in the content are unrelated to the ISS incident.
Two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, moved into Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, while three American astronauts and one Russian astronaut sought refuge in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. The remaining three astronauts moved into the Russian Soyuz spacecraft