Pentagon explores space debris, ISS astronauts forced to stay – 11/15/2021 at 5:34 p.m.

Image courtesy of NASA on March 7, 2011 (NASA / -)

The U.S. military says it is investigating a “debris-creating” event in space on Monday, forcing astronauts currently on the International Space Station to take refuge on their ships so they can leave if they need to.

“The U.S. space command is aware of an event that creates debris in space. We are actively working to classify the debris sector,” a spokesman said, adding that the military was in contact with the State Department and NASA on the matter.

Russia’s anti – satellite missile test by some U.S. astronauts is suspected to be the source of the debris, but information has not been confirmed at this time.

Such an operation to deploy troops from Moscow has been carried out by only four countries in the past, including Russia. This is highly criticized.

Earlier, the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced that the astronauts aboard the ISS were not in danger, without mentioning a possible missile test.

“The orbit of the object that forced the crew today to travel to the spacecraft using standard procedures deviated from the orbit of the ISS,” Roscosmos tweeted. “The station is now green.”

“Friends, everything is fine with us. We continue to work according to our plan,” tweeted Russian astronaut Anton Skoplerov.

When contacted, NASA did not immediately respond to AFP’s requests.

The International Space Station currently has seven crew members. According to Special Media Spaceflight Now, NASA astronauts Raja Sari, Kyla Barron and Tom Marshburn and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer have taken refuge on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.

American astronaut Mark Vande Hay and two Russian astronauts Anton Schaplerov and Pyotr Soyuz visited them from the same source on the spacecraft.

This procedure allows them to move from space station to Earth in an emergency.

la / vgr