ISS undertakes emergency boost to avoid space collision; here's why

The International Space Station (ISS) is a large spacecraft with a science laboratory onboard. It is presently a home to 14 astronauts from Soyuz MS-22 / MS-23, SpaceX Crew-5, and SpaceX Crew-6 missions who are learning about living and working in space.

The International Space Station (ISS), which is orbiting approximately 400 km above Earth, had to boost its engine to reorient its path out of the way of an Earth-imaging satellite on Monday, preventing a potential collision.

International Space Station (ISS) is home to astronauts studying space in laboratory onboard the spacecraft. (Nasa)

"The orbital outpost maneuvered out of the way of an Earth observation satellite early Monday. The docked ISS Progress 83 resupply ship fired its engines for just over six minutes, slightly raising the station’s orbit to avoid the approaching satellite," Nasa wrote in a blog post.

The US agency also clarified that the new orbital trajectory of the ISS will not impact the upcoming departure of the Crew 5 mission. The four-member crew is scheduled to return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft later in the day. "Crew 5 has worked on more than 100 different ISS research experiments over their five months on the space station - from exploring quantum mechanics to growing space tomatoes," Nasa tweeted on Thursday.

How rare is ISS manoeuvring its path to avoid collision?

The course correction operation performed by the ISS is not a rare event, as it has made a total of 32 course corrections to avoid satellites and trackable space debris since 1999. Two such corrections were required the previous year to avoid the Cosmos 1408 satellite debris that Russia destroyed in an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test in November 2021, Space.com reported.

What caused ISS to change its path?

While Nasa did not specify which satellite caused the ISS to dodge, experts believe it was the Argentine earth observation satellite Nusat-17. "Orbital decay: the Satellogic constellation is only one of a number of Earth observing constellations with multiple satellites entering the ISS orbital height regime. Im magenta, Nusat-17 which was the cause of yesterday's ISS dodge manoeuvre," Dr. Jonathan McDowell, astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a social media post.

What is International Space Station (ISS)?

The International Space Station (ISS) is a large spacecraft with a science laboratory onboard. It is presently a home to 14 astronauts from Soyuz MS-22 / MS-23, SpaceX Crew-5, and SpaceX Crew-6 missions who are learning about living and working in space.

The first piece was launched in 1998 by a Russian rocket. The first crew arrived on November 2, 2000, and people have been living on the space station ever since.