25 Oct 2022 09:22

Russia's Progress MS-20 spacecraft adjusts ISS orbit to evade space debris - NASA

WASHINGTON. Oct 25 (Interfax) - The thrusters of the Russian Progress MS-20 cargo spacecraft, which is identified by NASA as Progress 81, fired on Monday to adjust the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) in order to avoid a collision with space debris, NASA said on Tuesday.

"This evening, the International Space Station's Progress 81 thrusters fired for 5 minutes, 5 seconds in a Pre-Determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver [PDAM] to provide the complex an extra measure of distance away from the predicted track of a fragment of Russian Cosmos-1408 debris," NASA said in a statement on its website.

The avoidance maneuver was performed at 8:25 p.m. EDT on Monday, it said.

The statement said that if the station's orbit had not been adjusted, a fragment of the destroyed spacecraft could have passed within a radius of about five kilometers from the ISS.

As a result, the station's altitude rose by approximately 300 meters at apogee and 1.2 kilometers at perigee.