A Russian anti-satellite missile test puts the ISS in peril

“SORRY FORISSISSISSISS the early call”, the transmission from ground control to the International Space Station () in the morning of November 15th began, “but we were recently informed of a satellite break-up and need to have you guys start reviewing the safe-haven procedure.” That meant the crew of the —a joint venture between America, Canada, the European Space Agency, Japan and Russia—had to seal off some of the modules in which they live and work and retreat to the two space capsules currently moored at its airlocks, lest debris from the break-up puncture their living space.The source of the debris was a Soviet-era spy satellite, , in an orbit 100km or so above, and at an angle to, that of the . A few hours earlier this had been blown to smithereens in a Russian anti-satellite-missile test which turned the two-tonne hulk into some 1,500 pieces of debris large enough for American radars to track (meaning a few centimetres or greater across), and countless more smaller fragments. The exact extent of the cloud of debris could not be known, but it looked as if the was passing through it, and would do so repeatedly.