Space Station Raises Orbit Avoiding Orbital Debris

[Link]This mosaic depicts the space station pictured from the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft on Nov. 8, 2021.

The ISS Progress 89 thrusters were fired at 2:09pm Central time today for 5 minutes, 31 seconds to raise the orbit of the International Space Station that provided an extra margin of distance from a piece of orbital debris from a defunct defense meteorological satellite that broke up in 2015. The Pre-determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver (PDAM) was conducted in coordination with NASA, Roscosmos and the other ISS partners.

Without the maneuver, ballistics officials estimated that the fragment could have come within around 2 ½ miles of the station.

The maneuver had no impact on station operations and will not affect Thursday's scheduled launch of the ISS Progress 90 cargo craft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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