- Debris from a Russian anti-satellite
weapons test threatened to collide with theInternational Space Station . - The November 2021 test destroyed the Soviet-era Cosmos 1408 satellite, sending debris through
space .
The International Space station had to conduct an avoidance maneuver on Thursday to avoid being hit by space debris from a Russian anti-satellite weapons test.
In November 2021,
"The crew was never in any danger and the maneuver had no impact on station operations," read $4 about the avoidance maneuver. "Without the maneuver, it was predicted that the fragment could have passed within around a half-mile from the station."
The ISS conducts such avoidance maneuvers to swerve around space debris on a fairly regular basis, including incidents in $4 and $4 of last year. While collisions with debris the size of a baseball $4, collisions with smaller debris have also caused damage to the station.
Last year an unknown piece of debris $4 of the space station, puncturing a hole through it. In 2016, a small piece of space junk roughly the size of an eyelash $4 of the station.
The $4 there are more than a million pieces of potentially damaging debris in orbit.