Every 93 minutes or so the International Space Station passes thru a debris field created by a Russian anti-satellite missile test. Apparently, Roscosmos blew up an older unit that just happens to be near the one populated thing in orbit.
This morning, Russia destroyed one of its own satellites with a ground-based missile, creating thousands of pieces of debris that have spread out into Earth orbit, according to the US State Department. The US has identified at least 1,500 trackable pieces of debris from the event, and many thousands of smaller ones that cannot be traced, Ned Price, a spokesperson for the State Department, said during a briefing.
The news comes amid reports from Russia's space agency Roscosmos, independently verified by The Verge via NASA's live feed, that the astronauts living on board the International Space Station had to shelter in place this morning due to a cloud of space debris that seems to be passing by the station every 90 minutes, the time it takes for the ISS to orbit the Earth. NASA has yet to confirm if the debris field passing the ISS is the same one created by the Russian anti-satellite, or ASAT, test, and the agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
