China, we are grateful
Space Junk Avoidance
The International Space Station is now ready to maneuver out of the path of incoming space junk. This was originally created in 2007 after China conducted an in-orbit missile testing of an anti-satellite weapons.
Space debris is an ever-growing problem, and our increased presence in outer space means that the consequences are becoming more apparent.
According to Roscosmos, the Progress MS-18 cargo ship built in Russia, currently docked at the station, it will fire its thrusters for 361 second.
It will be sufficient to move the station out of the way but not enough to remove the debris from the ground.
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Anti-Satellite Test
This bit of trash was made 14 years ago when an antisatellite missile was used to destroy a Chinese weather satellite. According to Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer, and space tracker extraordinaire, the impact caused a cloud of space debris. More than 3,500 objects were tracked by this cloud.
This news comes just three years after the ISS was forced to dodge a piece space junk in September last year. Jim Bridenstine, the then-NASA Administrator, called for additional funding to assist the agency in tracking and managing the increasing number of junk pieces that are circling the planet.
McDowell says that the station will be closest to the Chinese space junk on Friday. Although the pieces of the weather satellite were in a higher orbit, they have slowly fallen to the station's orbit due to atmospheric drag.
According to an astronomer, this could be the third time that the ISS has had to evade debris from the anti-satellite rocket test. This is a worrying trend.
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READ MORE: Space station will dodge Chinese space junk [Space.com]
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