Russia’s Roscosmos space agency used an unpaid Progress 81 cargo ship that docked on the International Space Station to orbit the lab away from a piece of space debris from the Russian Cosmos 1408 satellite, announcing a video of the activity at social network Telegram multimedia service. Russia destroyed a Soviet-era wrecked satellite in a November 2021 anti-satellite missile test. “I confirm that at 22.03 Moscow time, the engines of the Russian cargo spacecraft Progress MS-20 made an unplanned maneuver to avoid a dangerous approach to the International Space Station with a fragment of the spacecraft Kosmos-1408,” said R . Rogozin wrote in the Telegram (opens in a new tab), according to a Google translation, using Roscosmos’s designation for Progress 81. At 19:03 UTS, # ProgressMS20 performed an unplanned engine burnout to avoid space debris created by # Kosmos1408. Following is a video from Roscosmos: pic.twitter.com/yHPymtzqgm 16 June 2022 See more The cargo ship Progress 81 launched its propellers for 4 minutes and 34 seconds to remove the huge space station from the orbit of the Cosmos-1408 section and to slightly raise the station’s orbit. “The crew was never in danger and the maneuver had no impact on the station’s operations,” NASA officials wrote in a statement (opening in a new tab). “Without the maneuver, it was predicted that the fragment could have passed about half a mile from the station.” Cosmos 1408 was a Soviet Tselina-D satellite focusing on electronics and intelligence signals launched in 1982 from the Russian spacecraft Plesetsk, according to a NASA report (opens in new tab). On November 15, 2021, the satellite (which was no longer operational) was deliberately destroyed by Russia in an anti-satellite missile test that produced about 1,500 pieces of orbital debris. Astronauts on the space station were forced to flee on November 15 due to concerns about the wreckage, which could pose a threat to the space station and other spacecraft for years to come, experts said. Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.
