The remains of the old Soviet-era satellite Cosmos-1408 They have been captured in images after their destruction by a test of Russian antisatellite weapons on November 15. The postcards were captured by a telescope of Numerica Corp., a Colorado-based US company that provides tracking of space debris objects and shared by the company’s partner, Slingshot Aerospace, On twitter.
The telescopic images show just some of the more than 1,500 traceable pieces of debris from Cosmos-1408 after its destruction by Russia, news outlet Space.com reports.
The passage of this debris cloud near the International Space Station (ISS) forced its seven crew members – including two Russian cosmonauts – twice to take refuge in their spacecraft based on a NASA risk assessment.
Regarding the images, Slingshot pointed out that Numerica “took images of the debris field created by the Russian antisatellite test against # Cosmos1408”. Numerica has a global network of telescopes and tracking software to aid in space domain awareness, according to its website.
According to a NASA statement, the Space Station moves through the debris field every 90 minutes, orbiting approximately 400 kilometers above Earth. The LeoLabs space debris tracker suggests that the cloud of satellite pieces varies in altitude between 440 to 520 kilometers above the celestial planet.
The antisatellite weapon test (ASAT) sparked an exchange of conflicting opinions between the United States and Russia, and also between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian counterpart of the aforementioned American institution. US officials called the act “dangerous and irresponsible behavior.”
Roscomos played down the incident. “The object’s orbit, which forced the crew today to move towards the spacecraft in accordance with standard procedures, has moved away from the orbit of the ISS. The station is in the green zone ”, assured the Russian agency in its account of the social network Twitter.
As reported by ABC, it is not the first time that the International Space Station has faced special garbage and where the crew members have been evacuated to the auxiliary ships. However, in no scenario have the evacuees returned to Earth.
With information from Europa Press
Source-larepublica.pe