A piece of orbital debris has crashed into the robotic arm of the International Space Station (ISS); however, that wouldn’t affect the near-term operations, as per the agencies that control the space laboratory.
The operators of the robotic arm noticed a hole in the ISS’ Canadarm2 that is developed by the Canadian Space Agency, servicing in the orbit since 2001. Officials are calling it a “lucky strike” as the size of the robotic arm is small, measuring 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) long and 14 inches (35 cm) in diameter.
No future missions affected
The hole isn’t clearly visible in the images, nor the debris through it. So, it is believed that Canadarm2’s job of keeping the ISS maintained won’t be affected, following careful work from both CSA and NASA.
“Results of the ongoing analysis indicate that the arm’s performance remains unaffected. The damage is limited to a small section of the arm boom and thermal blanket,” said CSA in the blog post.
Candarm2 was soon planned to move a Canadian robotic hand, Dextre, to replace the Remote Power Control switch box which has faulty power. That mission is expected to go forward as expected.
Orbital debris in low Earth orbit has been a growing concern for space agencies. Numerous satellites are being launched very frequently in the past few years, making the orbit more crowded than ever. Private companies such as SpaceX send batches of Starlink satellites to space almost every week.
23,000 space junk pieces being tracked
Some of these orbits intersect with ISS’s orbit at an inclination of 52 degrees, roughly 200 miles (450 km) in altitude. Not just that, space dust and other extraterrestrial objects are also believed to be a threat.
“A number of tiny objects – ranging from rock or dust particles to flecks of paint from satellites – are … too small to be monitored,” said CSA.
The U.S. Space Surveillance Network is tracking around 23,000 known small and large pieces of space debris in orbit. In case these objects get any close to the ISS, the station can alter its position slightly, or NASA can instruct the crews to take shelter.
