2Photo© hindustantimes.comSpace Station Astronauts Forced To Shelter After Russian Satellite Breaks Up
RESURS-P1 (#39186) broke up in low-Earth orbit on Wednesday, June 26, at approximately 1000 MT (1600 UTC), leaving behind more than 100 pieces of trackable debris, US Space Command notified. The alarming development forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station to take emergency shelter. According to NASA's Space Station Office, once the Russian Earth observation satellite broke up in an orbit near the ISS, US astronauts were directed to take shelter in their spacecraft for approximately an hour.
US Space Command further added that “USSPACECOM has observed no immediate threats and is continuing to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain.” At the time of writing, US space agencies didn't indicate any particular cause for the event.
Space-tracking firm LeoLabs said late Wednesday that it had detected a “debris-generating event in Low Earth Orbit.” Their early estimations of the breakup indicated that it occurred between 9:05 a.m. and 8:51 p.m. ET.