Russian satellite breaks up into 100 pieces; Here is what it means for Boeing and Sunita William's space project
There were no immediate details on what caused the break-up of the RESURS-P1 Russian Earth observation satellite, which was declared dead in 2022.
U.S. Space Command, tracking the debris swarm, said there was no immediate threat to other satellites.
What happened?
The event where the satellite broke into 100 pieces took place at around 10 a.m. Mountain Time (1600 GMT) on Wednesday, Space Command said. It occurred in an orbit near the space station, prompting U.S. astronauts on board to shelter in their spacecraft for roughly an hour, NASA's Space Station office said.
Russia's space agency Roscosmos, which operated the satellite, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Radars from U.S. space-tracking firm LeoLabs detected the satellite releasing several fragments up until 6 p.m. Mountain Time, the company said.
U.S. Space Command, which has its own global network of space-tracking radars, said the satellite immediately created «over 100 pieces of trackable debris.»
Will Russia's satellite cause trouble to Boeing project?
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams boarded their Starliner spacecraft, the Boeing-built capsule that has been docked since June 6 in its first crewed test mission on the station.
Three of the other U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut went into SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule that flew them to the station in March, while the sixth U.S. astronaut joined the two remaining cosmonauts in their Russian Soyuz capsule that ferried them there in September last year.
The
