Adjustment of ISS altitude postponed to avert collision with U.S. rocket fragment - source
MOSCOW. Jan 16 (Interfax-AVN) - The adjustment of the International Space Station's altitude has been postponed for two days because of possible danger of collision with a fragment of an old U.S. rocket, a source with the Russian space rocket sector told Interfax-AVN.
"If the correction of the station's orbit planned for Thursday had taken place, it would have created a dangerous proximity with object 10257 on the U.S. Space Object Catalog. This is a fragment of the upper stage of the U.S. launch vehicle Delta-1, which was used in sending the Japanese satellite Himavary into space on July 14, 1977," the source said.
It was reported earlier that the Russian space mission control located in Korolyov outside Moscow was to raise the ISS's average altitude by about 2 kilometers at 5:54 a.m. Moscow time Thursday, using the engines of an unmanned resupply spacecraft currently docked with the station.
The maneuver is designed to provide optimal conditions for the station's docking with the next resupply spacecraft to be launched from the Baikonur space center on February 5.