Nine astronauts aboard the space station briefly shuttled to their docked return spacecraft on Wednesday (June 26) when the satellite disintegrated in low Earth orbit.
The Expedition 71 crew on the International Space Station (ISS) went to their three spacecraft, including the Boeing Starliner, shortly after 21:00 EDT (02:00 GMT), according to a short update from NASA on X, formerly known as Twitter. Since the ISS follows a time zone identical to GMT, the astronauts were likely asleep when the incident occurred, according to the European Space Agency.
The procedure was a “precautionary measure,” NASA officials added, adding that the crew only remained in their spacecraft for about an hour before they were “cleared to exit their spacecraft and the station resumed normal operations.
NASA did not specify which satellite was associated with the incident, but satellite monitoring and collision detection company LeoLabs identified a “debris-generating event” that evening. “First indications show that the malfunctioning Russian spacecraft Resurs-P1 [or] SATNO 39186, released a number of fragments,” the company wrote on X.
Related: How often does the International Space Station have to dodge space debris?
The US Space Command also reported the Resurs-P1 event and said at X that more than 100 pieces of trackable debris had been created. The military said it “observed no immediate threats and continues to conduct a routine assessment of the conjunction.” (A conjunction refers to the close approach of two objects in orbit to each other.)
Resurs-P1 was launched on June 25, 2013 and operated until December 2021 — beyond its expected lifetime, according to RussianSpaceWeb. The Earth observation satellite has been used for applications ranging from defense to emergency monitoring to agriculture, NASA says.
The amount of space debris in orbit in general is a growing concern. To date, the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) tracks a total of more than 45,300 space objects, according to SpaceTrack.org. However, this does not include untrackable pieces. The Union of Concerned Scientists also lists 7,560 operational satellites orbiting the Earth, a number that belies the number of non-operational satellites that cannot be controlled.
NASA is working with the US military to monitor the area around the ISS. The space station is usually tasked with moving (if there’s time) if some roughly 2-inch (5-centimeter) trackable pieces make it into the “pizza box”-shaped space surrounding the ISS’s orbit. According to agency officials, that box is roughly 2.5 by 30 by 30 miles (4 by 50 by 50 kilometers) with the ISS at the center.
NASA procedures also dictate that astronauts can take shelter in their reentry spacecraft if the risk, usually very small from a statistical point of view, presents a chance of needing to evacuate the ISS. This happened, for example, after Russia deliberately destroyed a satellite in November 2021 in a surprise anti-satellite test that was condemned by other countries (including the United States).
NASA’s new update did not specify how close the satellite pieces came to the ISS. LeoLabs said the debris event monitored the released fragments between 9:05 a.m. EDT (1305 GMT) and 8:51 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0051 GMT Thursday, June 27).
Related: NASA confirms that the space debris in North Carolina came from the return of the SpaceX Crew Dragon
The incident illustrates what NASA officials have been stressing about the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, more than three weeks before its expected 10-day Crew Flight Test mission. The Starliner is on a test mission with two astronauts and is authorized to leave the ISS in the event of an emergency. (The other two manned spacecraft attached to the ISS are the SpaceX Dragon with four astronauts and the Russian Soyuz with three people on board.)
However, the Starliner’s nominal departure date has not yet been announced as it awaits review and testing of its thruster and helium supply systems, since problems with these two aspects of the spacecraft were discovered on June 6. NASA Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are now on ISS Maintenance Duty after performing this testing, according to several updates from NASA on the space station blog. NASA officials did not respond to Space.com’s request for an update on the Starliner sent early Wednesday afternoon EDT.
On Friday (June 21), NASA said the Starliner’s departure will be sometime after July 2, after an expected spacewalk that day. But it’s also unclear whether that spacewalk will continue, as a coolant leak halted extravehicular activity on Monday (June 24). The ISS astronauts subsequently conducted a “revision of the spacewalk,” NASA officials said, and in the days since have reviewed procedures and examined the affected spacesuit.
Boeing and NASA officials said development missions like the Starliner often fall off schedule due to unexpected events. And Starliner’s Atlas V rocket provider United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, gave reporters positive information on future launches of ULA’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket during an unrelated teleconference yesterday (June 26).
“Everyone is safe,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters during a conference call. He was talking about the Starliner crew, both former US Navy test pilots used to development programs.
“My understanding is that the helium leaks that have been in the news are stable and that there is a very, very large supply of helium on board the vehicle, so there is no urgency for them to come back,” Bruno added. “There are lots and lots of supplies on the space station. So again, no urgency.”
According to NASA officials, Bruno noted that except for one thruster that will be shut down during the disengagement, the other 27 are still operational in the reaction control system. Five jets showed anomalies during docking; while one is offline, the problems on the remaining four jets “have largely cleared up,” he said.
Bruno added that evaluations are still underway on what to do next. “NASA and Boeing will bring them [the astronauts] home when they’re done with work and when they’re ready and everything’s safe.”