The International Space Station (ISS) performed a “Pre-Determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver” to increase its distance away from a fragment of a Russian satellite.
NASA said in a post on its website that the ISS’s thrusters fired for just more than five minutes on Monday to provide an “extra measure of distance” from a fragment of debris from the Russian Cosmos 1408, a Soviet satellite launched in 1982 that operated for a couple of years.
A Russian anti-satellite test last November destroyed the satellite, generating a large cloud of debris, according to NASA. The cloud included about 1,500 pieces large enough to be tracked.
The thruster began firing at 8:25 p.m. on Monday and did not affect the station’s operations. The fragment could have passed within about three miles from the station if the maneuver was not completed.
NPR reported that millions of pieces of debris are circling the Earth, most of which result from satellite explosions and collisions.
The ISS moves about once per year to avoid coming into contact with debris, according to NPR.