RED threshold late notice conjunction threat misses ISS - Crew egress Soyuz

RED threshold late notice conjunction threat misses ISS - Crew egress Soyuz

www.nasaspaceflight.com

The three members of Expedition 18 carried out the contingency of “evacuation” into the Soyuz spacecraft attached to the International Space Station (ISS), following a “RED threshold late notice conjunction threat” alert, related to Object “25090 PAM-D” debris. The threat passed with no impact, allowing the crew to egress back into the Station.


Tracking of the small piece of debris/MMOD (Micrometeoroid Orbital Debris) was initially classed as a low threat of collision with the ISS. However, latest tracking suggests the threat is red.As a contingency, NASA’s Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke, Russian Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov, and NASA’s Sandra Magnus were asked to “evacuate” into the Russian Soyuz, which would serve as their means of departing from the Station - had it been required.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The debris object is called a “yo weight” - which was originally part of a Delta PAM-D stage - used to launch GPS 37 in 1993. The yo weight is a small mass attached to a 1-meter-long cable, used to tumble the stage after separation from the payload so it doesn’t recontact. Although it would have a mass less than 1kg, travelling at 17,500 mph makes even the smallest object a serious threat.

I just saw this on TV!!! And then they finally told me it was pre-rcorded and happened the other day...

Wow, it seemed to be rather an exciting process, they ended up canceling all of the events on the schedule, such as Ham Radio events, and something called CDE.

I never heard the term Red Conjunction before, and thought it was quite a cool term to describe what happened.

www.nasaspaceflight.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Here's the play by play of it happening:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Chadwickus


Wow Thanks!