Well, some debris might muck up the International Space Station. The Russians did a counter-satellite missile test, destroying one of their own satellites. While this practice is not uncommon, as it is done by many countries including the United States, most of the time it is done to satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Russia, however, destroyed a satellite in a much higher orbit, causing many large pieces of trackable debris, though these are not the real danger, it also created thousands of small untrackable pieces headed straight to the ISS. The astronauts onboard the ISS had to go into the small escape capsules on the station and wait until the ISS was out of the debris field. This has caused massive uproar amongst countries that have satellites in Earth’s orbit. It has not only put experiment and surveillance satellites at risk, but it also puts the lives of the entire crew of the ISS into harm’s way. As of today, the majority of the debris has fallen into Earth’s atmosphere and burned up leaving the ISS in the clear and allowing the crew to continue their duties on the station.
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