[arstechnica.com]

The seven astronauts and cosmonauts onboard the International Space Station sheltered inside their respective spacecraft, a Crew Dragon and Soyuz, on Monday morning as the orbiting laboratory passed through an unexpected debris field.

This was not a pre-planned collision avoidance maneuver in low Earth orbit, in which the station would use onboard propulsion to move away. Rather, the situation required the astronauts to quickly take shelter.

Had there been a collision during the conjunction, the two spacecraft would have been able to detach from the space station and make an emergency return to Earth. Ultimately that was not necessary, and the astronauts reemerged into the space station later Monday. However, as the crew on board the station prepared for their sleep schedule, Mission Control in Houston asked them to keep as many of the hatches onboard the space station closed for the time being, in case of an unexpected collision during subsequent orbits...

It appears likely that the debris field that had alarmed flight controllers on Monday was caused by an anti-satellite test performed by Russia's military early on Monday.

The US Department of Defense on Monday issued the following statement on the test: "US Space Command is aware of a debris-generating event in outer space. We are actively working to characterize the debris field and will continue to ensure all space-faring nations have the information necessary to maneuver satellites if impacted."...

It appears that Russia launched a surface-to-space Nudol missile on Monday, between 02:00 and 05:00 UTC, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the northern part of the country. The missile then struck an older satellite, Cosmos 1408. Launched in 1982, the satellite had been slowly losing altitude and was a little more than 450 km above the Earth.

This is a large satellite, with a mass of about 2,000 kg. As of Monday afternoon, US Space Command said it was already tracking more than 1,000 pieces of new debris.

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Russians want to peddle this tech to the NoKors among others.
Now to wait & see what, if anything our elected leaders will do.
My money thinks the Chinese aren't thrilled about this either, as their
$150B (est.) Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) Space Station is also orbiting.

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39°36'17"N 75°44'43"W

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Taxman by Joe & Nancy's Rich Ice Cream Band
The Humpty Dance by The Harris-Brown Hookup
Lets Spend The Night Together by The Fang-Swalwell Gang
Díaz-Canel Is A Friend of Ours by The AOC Squad
My Old Kentucky Retirement Home by MitchMcC & The Soggy Boxer Boys
Burning Down The House by Merrick & The Goons
Back In the USSR by Bernie's Red Square Trio

Hey Bezos! Cleanup on isle 9!

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JoeM

Space is really big.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

Keep pushing for that Kessler Syndrome.....

[en.wikipedia.org]

Navigation by inertial systems and LORAN, communication by land lines and radio, planetary monitoring by having to go and look at it. Deep space satellites would be safe, geosynch satellites would probably be safe, but LEO stuff... toast.

[www.youtube.com]

SPACE JUNK

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Oh, and here is a visual representation of the stuff around our planet....

[maps.esri.com]#

Quote
cbelt3
Oh, and here is a visual representation of the stuff around our planet....

[maps.esri.com]#

Scary cool.

And all that in just 64 years. just imagine what it will be like in another decade.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

Quote
MrNoBody
Russians want to peddle this tech to the NoKors among others.
Now to wait & see what, if anything our elected leaders will do.
My money thinks the Chinese aren't thrilled about this either, as their
$150B (est.) Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) Space Station is also orbiting.

After China's own ASAT test, they can suck me and swallow... They put a debris cloud up that will take 200+ years to deorbit.

At least when the U.S. did a test a few years later, WE had the good sense to do it at an altitude where all the debris deorbited within 2 years.

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Paul F.
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A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 5 BC - 65 AD
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Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence.
Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.
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Eureka, CA

China's test was WAY worse.

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