NASA Postpones Astronauts’ Spacewalk Due To Risk From Debris

It feels a bit like a headline ripped from the plotline of the 2013 flick “Gravity” - NASA astronauts suddenly find themselves having to worry more about the threat of space debris whipping around Earth at over 17,000 miles per hour.

Just two weeks after the current crew of the International Space Station had to take emergency shelter in the Russian Soyuz and SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules that are docked to the ISS, NASA has now postponed a planned spacewalk because of the threat.

One source of the increased threat is Russia’s recent anti-satellite missile test that created hundreds, if not thousands, of new pieces of debris in low-earth orbit. On November 15 it was reported that Russia blasted one of its own defunct satellites to smithereens, a move that drew global condemnation.

“It was dangerous. It was reckless. It was irresponsible,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

Two NASA astronauts were scheduled to venture outside the ISS on Tuesday for a spacewalk to repair a bad antenna system, but a last minute warning late Monday led to a change of plans

“NASA received a debris notification for the International Space Station,” reads a statement from the space agency. “Due to the lack of opportunity to properly assess the risk it could pose to the astronauts, teams have decided to delay the spacewalk until more information is available.”

To be clear, we don’t yet know if the debris notification is directly related to the new field of junk created by the Russian missile test. However, the fact is that there’s a lot more debris orbiting Earth at or near the same relative altitude as the ISS than there was a few weeks ago as a result of the test.

NASA says the “space station schedule and operations are able to easily accommodate the delay of the spacewalk.”

Whenever it finally takes place, the spacewalk is expected to take 6.5 hours for NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron to replace an S-band Antenna Subassembly (SASA) with a spare.

And in case you were wondering: No, the antenna was not hit by space debris, at least not so far as we know.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2021/11/30/nasa-postpones-astronauts-spacewalk-due-to-risk-from-debris/?sh=554a63e53a49