International Space Station adjusts orbit to dodge debris

Washington: The International Space Station (ISS) avoided orbital debris once more, this time just hours before a cargo ship arrived, A media source stated.

According to the TASS news agency, the Russian space agency Roscosmos stated that the International Space Station's orbit had been modified by 2.5 kilometres in order to provide ballistic conditions prior to the launch of the Progress MS-25 cargo vehicle.

"Before the arrival of the new Progress MS-25 cargo spacecraft, the orbit of the International Space Station needs to be adjusted," the state space corporation said in a statement.

According to preliminary data, the average height of the station's orbit increased by 2.5 kilometres to 417.98 kilometres above the Earth's surface.

The manoeuvre was performed with the engines of the Progress MS-24 cargo spacecraft. They were turned on at 00:11 p.m. Moscow time (09:11 p.m. GMT) and burned for 905.7 seconds, the report said.

Meanwhile, NASA is yet to disclose about the manoeuvre.

Space debris -- artificial objects orbiting Earth that are not functional spacecraft -- is a growing concern to satellites and is also known to pose a hazard to the ISS, which has had run-ins with debris in the recent past.

As of December 2022, the ISS had moved out of the way from space debris 32 times since 1999, NASA officials noted in a quarterly debris report.

The orbital debris manoeuvring count jumped to 37 occasions overall -- and twice alone in the month of August 2023.

With inputs from IANS