The crew of China’s space station conducted two spacewalks last winter to repair the solar wings attached to the core module that had been damaged by space debris.
The Tiangong space station’s core module, Tianhe, suffered a partial power failure due to the impact, prompting China to send its astronauts on two spacewalks to repair the orbit. The recent spacewalks were historic, marking the first time Chinese astronauts had to carry out repair work in orbit. As a state media company Xinhua Now reports that these repairs were successful and the core module’s solar blades were repaired.
The 17 Shenzhou crew members – astronauts Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin – spent nearly 16 hours at the space station during the two spacewalks, the first on December 1, 2023 and the second on March 1, 2024 Chinese Manned Space Administration (CMSA). According to Xinhua, the space station’s solar arrays are now fully operational, noting that the damage was due to the “impact of space debris on the solar wing’s power cables.”
It’s not clear when the impact on the space station occurred or what exactly might have hit the solar arrays. Given that the first spacewalk took place in December, it is likely that the impact occurred shortly before that. It may have been a natural occurrence of a micrometeorite in orbit or the result of man-made space debris.
China’s Tiangong space station has carried out several maneuvers to avoid space debris, CMSA deputy director Lin Xiqiang said during a recent press conference, Xinhua reported. The recent incident has prompted the Chinese space agency to take preventive measures to mitigate the risks of space debris. An upcoming mission to the station will bring “space debris protection reinforcements for pipelines, cables and critical equipment outside the vehicle,” according to Xinhua.
Lin said the space agency has improved its ability to predict the orbits of the space station and surrounding objects, refined procedures for space collision warnings and avoidance maneuvers, and reduced the false alarm rate by 30 percent, Xinhua reported. CMSA will also use the high-resolution camera on the space station’s robotic arm and the handheld cameras outside the vehicle used by the astronauts to inspect Tiangong from the outside and analyze the likelihood of small debris impacts.
The risks posed by space debris in orbit are increasing as more spacecraft are launched, increasing the likelihood of an in-orbit collision. Earlier this year, a The Russian satellite, which no longer worked, came within 10 meters NASA’s TIMED spacecraft, which would have resulted in thousands more space debris fragments floating in orbit.
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