Repairs instead of despair
Last month, astronauts aboard China’s Tiangong space station conducted a lengthy spacewalk to repair a solar array damaged by debris.
Well, state-owned media company Xinhua reports that these repairs were successful as China takes steps to protect its astronauts from the threats posed by an increasingly crowded orbit.
According to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), the debris hit the solar array’s power cables, partially supplying power to the station. Members of the Shenzhou 17 mission then conducted two nearly eight-hour spacewalks, one in December and the latest in early March, to repair the module using a robotic arm.
“The repair work has highlighted the role of a manned spacecraft in dealing with unintended problems in orbit,” CMSA deputy director Lin Xiqiang said at a press conference, as Xinhua paraphrased.
It is unclear whether the debris was man-made or a natural micrometeoroid. But if there’s any indication, Lin said that “preventative measures have been taken to mitigate the dangers posed by increasing human activities in space in recent years,” per Xinhua.
Duck and weave
Debris impacts are not uncommon. To give an example: The International Space Station regularly performs maneuvers to avoid hazardous waste. Up in orbit, where objects can move at speeds of up to 18,000 miles per hour, even the impact of a tiny particle could cause significant damage.
Scientists agree it’s a problem that will only get worse as humanity ramps up its space missions and replenishes an already overcrowded sea of orbiting trash.
China, for its part, is already able to “accurately predict the orbits of the space station and small targets in low orbits,” Lin said.
But you can’t predict everything. And so the incoming Shenzhou-18 crew, which launched just Thursday morning from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, will be tasked with installing “space debris protection reinforcements” around the station as an additional security measure. It also plans to use video footage captured by cameras carried by astronauts during spacewalks and by a camera on the space station’s robotic arm to help analyze potential impacts.
Luckily for everyone involved, this turned out to be a fairly minor incident. However, some have been far too close for comfort in the past. There are early attempts to clean up our orbit, but these are likely years away from having a large-scale impact.
More on the subject of space debris: A man’s lawyer contacts NASA after space station debris smashes into his home