A missing Russian satellite has broken up into more than 100 pieces of debris in orbit, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to evacuate for about an hour and adding to the mass of space debris already in orbit, US space agencies said.
There were no immediate details on what caused the disintegration of the Russian Earth observation satellite Resurs-P1, which Russia declared dead in 2022.
The US Space Command, tracking the bundle of debris, said there was no immediate threat to other satellites.
The incident occurred around 10 a.m. MST (1600 GMT) on Wednesday, the Space Command said. It occurred in orbit near the space station, prompting the American astronauts on board to shelter in their spacecraft for approximately an hour, NASA’s Space Station office said.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos, which operated the satellite, did not respond to a request for comment or publicly acknowledge the incident on its social media channels.
The US Space Command, which has a global network of space tracking radars, said the satellite immediately generated “over 100 pieces of trackable debris”.
By Thursday afternoon, radars from US space tracking firm LeoLabs had detected at least 180 pieces, the company said.
Large debris-generating events in orbit are rare, but of increasing concern as space becomes populated with satellite networks vital to everyday life on Earth, from broadband Internet and communications to basic navigation services such as and satellites that are no longer in use.
The breakup of the satellite was at an altitude of about 220 miles (355 km) in low Earth orbit, a popular region where thousands of small to large satellites operate.
“Due to the low orbit of this debris cloud, we estimate it will be weeks to months before the danger passes,” LeoLabs said in a statement to Reuters.
The approximately 25,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 cm in space caused by satellite explosions or collisions have raised concerns about the prospect of a Kessler effect—a phenomenon in which satellite collisions with debris can create a cascading field of larger debris. dangerous and exponentially increase the risks of a crash.
Russia drew strong criticism from the US and other Western countries in 2021 when it hit one of its disabled satellites in orbit with a ground-based anti-satellite (Asat) missile launched from its Plesetsk missile site. The explosion, testing a weapons system ahead of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, created thousands of pieces of orbital debris.
In the roughly 88-minute window of Resurs-P1’s initial breakup, the Plesetsk site was one of several locations on Earth it passed through, but there was no immediate indication from airspace or maritime signals that Russia had fired a missile to strike the satellite. . said Jonathan McDowell, a space tracker and Harvard astronomer.
“I find it hard to believe that they would use such a large satellite as an Asat target,” McDowell said. “But with the Russians these days, who knows.”
He and other analysts speculated that the breakup could have been caused by a problem with the satellite, such as fuel left on board causing an explosion.
What happens to old satellites?
Dead satellites either remain in orbit until they descend into Earth’s atmosphere for a fiery death years later, or, in much preferred—but less common—circumstances, they fly into a “graveyard orbit” about 22,400 miles (36,000 km) from Earth to the bottom. the risk of collision with active satellites.
Roscosmos decommissioned Resurs-P1 due to onboard equipment failures in 2021, announcing the decision the following year. The satellite has since appeared to be descending through layers of other active satellites for eventual atmospheric reentry.
The six American astronauts currently on the space station were notified by NASA’s mission control in Houston around 9 p.m. ET Wednesday (0100 GMT Thursday) to execute “safe haven” procedures, with each crew member rushing to the spacecraft it arrived in, in case an emergency launch is required.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams boarded their Starliner spacecraft, the Boeing-built capsule that has been docked since June 6 on its first crewed test mission to the station.
Three of the other American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut entered SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which flew them to the station in March, while the sixth American astronaut joined the remaining two cosmonauts in their Russian Soyuz capsule, which transported there in September last year. .
The astronauts exited their spacecraft roughly an hour later and resumed their normal work on the station, NASA said.
The prospect of satellite collisions and space warfare has added urgency to calls by space lawyers and advocates for countries to create an international space traffic management mechanism, which currently does not exist.