Washington / Moscow – Two US astronauts replaced a defective antenna system on the International Space Station during a field mission. Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron left the ISS for around six hours and 30 minutes on Thursday, as announced by the US space agency Nasa. The mission – Barron’s first and Marshburn’s fifth – was successful. It had actually been planned for Tuesday, but was postponed due to the danger of debris in space. What kind of rubble it was was not disclosed.
About two weeks ago, the crew of the ISS – including the German astronaut Matthias Maurer – had to get to safety in two spaceships docked at the station because of a feared collision with space debris. A day later, Russia confirmed that its military had tested an anti-satellite missile and shot down a disused satellite.
According to Russian information, the ISS had to dodge space junk again on Friday. The flight path of the station has been lowered by 310 meters, tweeted the space agency Roskosmos. The engines of the spaceship Progress MS-18 docked at the ISS were used for this. The space debris was the remains of a US Pegasus missile, said Roskosmos boss Dmitri Rogozin of the Tass state agency.
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