WASHINGTON — A Russian satellite tv for pc in low Earth orbit broke up June 26, creating greater than 100 items of trackable particles and briefly inflicting the Worldwide House Station crew to take shelter.
The satellite tv for pc, Resurs P1, suffered some form of occasion at round 12 p.m. Jap June 26, U.S House Command (USSPACECOM) mentioned in a June 27 assertion, creating greater than 100 items of particles. The assertion didn’t point out any potential trigger for the breakup.
“USSPACECOM has noticed no instant threats and is continuous to conduct routine conjunction assessments to assist the security and sustainability of the area area,” it said.
LeoLabs, the corporate that screens low Earth orbit with a world community of radars, reported the occasion on social media late June 26, estimating the time of the breakup to be between 9:05 a.m. and eight:51 p.m. Jap.
LeoLabs has detected a debris-generating occasion in Low Earth Orbit. Early indications are {that a} non-operational Russian spacecraft, Resurs P1 (SATNO 39186), launched various fragments between 13:05 UTC 26 June and 00:51 UTC 27 June.
— LeoLabs (@LeoLabs_Space) June 27, 2024
A LeoLabs spokesperson mentioned June 27 that the corporate was now monitoring at the very least 180 objects from the occasion, a quantity that might improve. The spokesperson added that it was nonetheless too early to find out what precipitated the breakup.
The occasion seems to have precipitated the ISS crew to briefly take shelter in spacecraft docked to the station. “Starting round 8:45 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 26 NASA instructed crews aboard the area station to shelter of their respective spacecraft as a normal precautionary measure after it was knowledgeable of a satellite tv for pc break-up at an altitude close to the station’s earlier Wednesday,” NASA mentioned in a press release. Mission management gave an all-clear to the crew about an hour later.
Resurs P1 is a defunct Russian Earth remark satellite tv for pc weighing about 6,000 kilograms. Launched in 2013 right into a sun-synchronous orbit, the spacecraft was decommissioned in late 2021 and its orbit was decaying. On the time of the incident, its altitude had decreased to about 355 kilometers, and the spacecraft was more likely to reenter earlier than the top of the yr.
What precipitated the spacecraft to interrupt up is just not clear. The main rationalization is the spacecraft itself broke aside as a result of it was not correctly passivated on the finish of its mission. Passivation includes eradicating sources of vitality, equivalent to draining batteries and venting tanks, which have been linked to previous satellite tv for pc breakups.
The spacecraft may have been hit by an untracked piece of particles. There has additionally been hypothesis that the spacecraft was hit by a Russian anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon in a take a look at like that in November 2021, when a direct-ascent ASAT struck Cosmos 1408, creating almost 1,800 items of tracked particles. Nonetheless, there have been no statements by both the Protection Division or Russian Ministry of Protection about such a take a look at, which seemingly would have been noticed by American property, and Russia didn’t file airspace restrictions related to any potential launch web site for an ASAT take a look at on the time Resurs P1 broke up.
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