On June 27, at 1:00 a.m. GMT, nine astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) quickly moved to three spacecraft following a satellite breaking apart in orbit. NASA announced that the incident occurred at this time, which is also the time zone the ISS operates in. The astronauts may have been sleeping at the time of the incident.
Two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, moved into Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, while three American astronauts and one Russian astronaut sought refuge in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. The remaining three astronauts moved into the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The astronauts were only in their spacecraft for about an hour before resuming normal operations on the station.
NASA did not identify the satellite, but satellite monitoring company LeoLabs identified a debris event involving a non-functional Russian satellite, Resurs-P1. This event created over 100 pieces of trackable debris. Resurs-P1 was launched in 2013 and had been operating beyond its expected lifespan. The increasing amount of space junk in orbit is becoming a growing concern for agencies like NASA and NORAD.
To ensure the safety of the ISS and its crew, NASA works with the US military to monitor space around the station and takes precautions to avoid collisions with debris larger than 5 cm entering its orbit. While LibraryThing, joker123motobola, and other sites mentioned in this content are unrelated to this ISS incident, they highlight concerns about space debris and its potential impact on future missions.