Space Debris "Lucky Strike" Damages ISS Robotic Arm, Is It Dangerous?

A piece of space junk has pierced the International Space Station's robotic arm. But NASA and Canadian mission managers insist the arm's functions will be unaffected; yet, this is far from the orbiting laboratory's last debris encounter.

The International Space Station (ISS) is located roughly 200 miles above the Earth in low-Earth orbit, a favorite location for small satellite launches and a lot of space trash. NASA is constantly tracking more than 23,000 bits of garbage from defunct satellites, rocket parts, and other items in the event of a possible collision with spacecraft or the American football-field-length space station, where around seven astronauts live and work. There are also other objects that are too small to be tracked, such as dust particles or smaller pieces of satellite debris.

Even with those precautions in place - mission managers can choose to move the ISS to avoid such collisions - collisions with the ISS and its extremities do occur. The space station has also been hit by micrometeorites in the past.

Space Debris Hits Canadian Arm Of ISS

On May 12, astronauts discovered a hole in a small section of the arms boom and thermal blanket of the Canadarm2 robotic arm built by the Canadian Space Agency. The damage was caused by a piece of debris that was too small to be traced.

Given the small size of the arm, which is 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) long and has a diameter of just 14 inches, officials labeled the hole a "lucky strike" (35 cm). Objects the size of a softball and larger are monitored in orbit for the possibility of colliding with the International Space Station.

In a blog post, CSA officials said that Engineers from the CSA and NASA collaborated to assess the damage and determined that the arm's performance is unaffected. The robotic arm is critical to the ISS since it is used to grasp spacecraft and aid people during spacewalks, scheduled to occur multiple times soon.

The Canadarm2 will continue to work as planned. The CSA did not say whether the hole would be repaired or patched.

CNet said the Canadarm2, a roughly 60-foot-long (18-meter-long) robotic arm on the station's exterior that assists with maintenance operations and "catches" visiting spacecraft. The said portion is one of Canada's most visible contributions to the International Space Station.

Canadarm2 was expected to send a Canadian robotic hand, Dextre, into a location to repair a defective power switch box known as the Remote Power Control module soon, although CSA stated that operation should be unaffected. Canadarm2 and Dextre are usually run from the CSA headquarters in Montreal, Quebec.

Space Debris Becomes A Growing Concern

Space.com said due to the increasing number of CubeSat launches arriving in fleets for broadband access and other uses, orbital debris is becoming a severe hazard in low Earth orbit.

Some of these orbits cross with the space station, which runs at a 52-degree inclination at around 200 miles (450 kilometers) altitude, but natural space dust and other objects also pose a threat. "A lot of microscopic things - ranging from rock or dust particles to flecks of paint from satellites - are... too small to be tracked," according to the blog post from the CSA.

Space station solar panels had previously been discovered to have flaws, such as the "bullet hole" that Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeted about on his last trip in 2012-13.

The US Space Surveillance Network keeps track of at least 23,000 known softball-sized or bigger pieces of space debris in orbit, Space.com said. if any come close to the ISS, the station can adjust its position slightly, or NASA can advise its crews to take shelter, as it did in September.

One of the main hazards to ISS operations and natural aging is damage from space rocks or orbital debris (as parts have been in orbit since 1998). NASA combats aging by doing routine maintenance and replacements.

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