Astronauts Wait Out Space Debris Threat in Lifeboat
That’s kind of a strange thought, huh, a lifeboat in space. I wonder how long that lifeboat would sustain a person or persons, considering how long it could take to ready shuttles for rescue missions.
The three astronauts(kosmonauts) aboard the International Space Station got a nasty phone call today. It was NASA calling, and a chunk of space junk was headed right for the ISS. No time to fire an engine to nudge the vessel out of the way of impact and besides another piece of debris was in the way, the crew instead climbed into the Soyuz lifeboat. Luckily, the five-inch wide piece of space litter whizzed by the Space Station, and eleven minutes after entering the lifeboat, the astronauts returned to the station.
A spokeman for NASA told the New York Times that the threat of collision posed by the piece of space debris was not huge, but having the crew go into the lifeboat was an “abundance of caution.”
This is the fifth time since becoming operational in 1998 that space debris has threatened the International Space Station so much that the lifeboat maneuver was an option.
By the way, I was being rather glib about the Soyuz lifeboat earlier. The Soyuz is not technically a lifeboat per se, but it is the ship that takes the crews to the ISS as well as returning them to Earth. Here is a picture of the Soyuz docked at the International Space Station.
As the name would imply, the Soyuz is the Russian equivalent to the US space shuttle, in that it is used in the transport of people and equipment to the Space Station. The Soyuz program started back in the 60’s for the then Soviet’s moon mission.
International Space Station, NASA, space debris, space junk, satellite, orbit, Soyuz, lifeboat, space shuttle, US, Russian, Soviet
