Article Posted on : - Sep 02, 2008

LONDON (BNS): The International Space Station avoided a collision with space debris on Thursday, almost five years after the last reported such encounter.

The maneuver was carried out with the help of Europe's International Space Station (ISS) logistics spacecraft, Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). The operation was performed at 18:11 CEST (16:11UT) on Thursday. The maneuver lasted exactly five minutes and two seconds.

The avoidance of debris is a rare occurrence and this has occurred after a gap of five years, with the last one taking place in 2003 and the first one eight years ago.

The only vehicle that could carry out this kind of maneuver was the ATV, as it was docked to the AFT end of Russia's Zvezda Service module. By performing the retrograde maneuver at the Space Station it was possible to avoid debris from an old satellite. The retrograde maneuver was possible by slowing ATV, which in turn lowered its orbiting altitude.

The scientists explaining the process of the maneuver said that initially, the ATV Control Centre first positioned ATV, and then handed the control to the Mission Centre in Moscow. In Moscow, the scientists guided the Station through a 180-degree turn, to enable ATV's AFT thrusters to come to the front of the Station as per the ISS flight profile.

Once positioned, Jules Verne ATV used its thrusters at the back in the specified time and produced a speed of 1 m/s to delay the Station. During its mission at the Station, ATV uses the same thrusters to perform re-boost maneuvers.