The Space Station Has to Swerve to Avoid Debris from Satellite Russia Blew Up

We thought space vacations were fun. Imagine being the first space tourist to land on the International Space Station and then being stuck for days and narrowly avoiding a piece of satellite Russia blew up.

CBS space news reporter William Harwood broke the news yesterday that several crew members were going to have to perform a booster maneuver on Saturday.

A reboost maneuver is being planned for Saturday morning to improve downstream trajectory planning and to avoid a possible close encounter with a piece of debris from the Russian ASAT.

ISS: The ISS astronauts were told this afternoon a reboost maneuver is being planned for Saturday morning to A) improve downstream trajectory planning and B) to avoid a possible close encounter with a piece of debris from the Russian ASAT test last 11/15

— William Harwood (@cbs_spacenews) April 22, 2022

Phone Home

Luckily Harwood followed up quickly to say that the event shouldn't interfere with Saturday evening's Ax-1 undocking, a trip that was organized by by SpaceX and Axiom Space and required crew members to drink recycled pee.

ISS The debris "conjunction" might "go green," meaning additional tracking might show it poses no threat, but the reboost will be carried out anyway, NASA says; the maneuver will not affect the Ax-1 crew's planned undocking from the station Saturday evening, weather permitting

— William Harwood (@cbs_spacenews) April 22, 2022

It's hard to say when the tourist crew will get to return to Earth, but at least the current threat of collision with Russian space junk is over for now. Harwood said that debris trajectory will still be monitored.

Russia has threatened to smash the US with space junk before the year is out, and that is in addition to the violence in Ukraine.

Russia is unwilling to collaborate on and off Earth.

Harvard scientist says alien tech may have crashed into the ocean and he wants it.