Satellite Debris Forces ISS Crew Into Rescue Craft

Muad'Dave writes "CNN is reporting that the crew of the International Space Station was forced to take refuge from a possible collision of the ISS with a piece of space debris Thursday. From the article: 'Floating debris from a satellite forced the crew of the international space station to retreat to a safety capsule Thursday, according to a NASA news release. .. The debris was too close for the space station to move out of the way, so the station's three crew members were temporarily evacuated to a the station's Soyuz TMA-13 capsule, NASA said.'" Update: 03/12 18:42 GMT by T : The original story incorrectly said the ISS had 18 crew members. Luckily for the three in the Soyuz, that was a mistake.

Comments

Re:Soyuz is invincible.

[shadowbearer]

  According to an article I just read*, that piece of junk was estimated to be about five inches in diameter and traveling at a relative velocity (to the ISS) of about 22,000 mph. That's almost ten kilometers a second**.

  If that had hit the Soyuz, it would have went in one side and out the other likely without even slowing down much, vaporizing a significant chunk of the hull - think white-hot metal shrapnel and shredded astronauts.

  Look at what happens to an armored tank when a depleted uranium shell hits it at a much slower velocity. At the velocities we're talking about here, even a pebble can cause a lot of destruction; a five inch piece of debris likely weighing at least a kg has an effect like a large artillery shell. Remember the flake of paint that put an inch diameter pit into the shuttle's windshield all those years ago?

  The only effective armor against something like this is a meter or so of rock.

* http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2009-03-12-space-station_N.htm

**Google: 22000 mph in meters per second = 9834.88 meters per second.

SB