Object near miss with the ISS

[iceman]

Followed some chatter on twitter about an object that was coming into conjunction with the ISS.

The threat was initial minimal but obviously passed closer than they expected as the threat level was raised and the crew actually evacuated into the Soyez escape module.

More here:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/03/threat-to-iss-crew-soyuz/

[iceman]

More news and info:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/12/breaking-small-but-finite-chance-iss-to-be-hit-by-debris/

[spearo]

Thanks Mike,
Hard to imagine how terrifying this would have been for them up there.
thanks for sharing the info
frank

[iceman]

NASA says the debris was a portion of a spent satellite motor.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/

[interstellar]

Astronouts sit in the soyuz for 10 minutes while space debris comes dangerously close to the ISS today. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

[Analog6]

Scarey stuff for them, but th training obviously kicks in and they do their safety routines. It will be if one ever slips past the tracking warning they'll be in real trouble. Hopefully that will never happen.

We are very fragile beings for the vastness of space.

[Kal]

Interesting to read how they have taken evasive manouvres 8 times previously, but they didn't have time to take preventative manuovres for this.

I wonder how many uncatalogued pieces of space junk have near misses that aren't even known about?