Nearly CATASTROPHIC Space Disaster – Flying Structure Badly Damaged!
(FeaturedNews.com) – A European Space Agency (ESA) satellite performed a one-of-a-kind maneuver in space to avoid a potentially devastating collision with a tumbling piece of Russian space junk. Operators of observational satellite Sentinal-1A had little time to prepare for the emergency, planning for and pulling off the move with only a single day’s notice.
The near-disaster was a direct result of a Russian military test a year ago that blew an antiquated Soviet-era satellite to pieces, much to the extraplanetary community’s dismay. Countries across the globe that explore beyond Earth warned that the space junk created by the seemingly reckless move would inevitably cause problems for functioning satellites and manned missions to space.
Russian space debris almost obliterates European satellite https://t.co/0y96xR5Dpu
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) May 19, 2022
The Kosmos 1408 satellite destroyed by the Russians left a debris cloud of 1500 trackable pieces. While the original satellite sat in a single position 300 miles above Earth, its shattered corpse sits in a wide array of orbits from 185 to 680 miles up.
The ESA satellite was fortunate to make it through the episode. Last year, in another near-miss scare from the debris, people aboard the International Space Station had to take shelter in case the fuselage took a hit. Fortunately, no major events occurred. Future close encounters, however, may not go so well.
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