NASA Cancels Debris Alert for Space Station
NASA Cancels Debris Alert for Space Station - Technology & Science - Space
Plans to move the International Space Station to a slightly different orbit were called off on Thursday after controllers determined that two pieces of orbital debris would not pose a collision risk, NASA said.
Mission controllers had been monitoring debris from an old Russian Cosmos satellite and a fragment from an Indian rocket, and said there was a chance that the debris could come close enough to require an adjustment in the station’s orbit on Thursday.
But NASA said additional tracking of the debris “resulted in a high degree of confidence that neither object would pose any possibility of a conjunction” with the station. As a result, Mission Control in Houston canceled the debris avoidance maneuver. Russian flight controllers endorsed the decision, NASA said.