Space Debris Causing Holes In Space Station Arm

JAKARTA - Space debris is a serious concern for the International Space Station (ISS). Because small debris from bolts or other loose objects could be a serious incident for the space base.

It is known that there is a hole in one of the arms of the Canadarm2 robot, as a result of being hit by the remains of components of a rocket orbiting Earth. Luckily the instruments that are part of the ISS are still functioning normally, but the mysterious object that hit managed to penetrate the thermal blanket and damage the mast below.

It is not known when this collision occurred, but this damage was only detected on May 12 during a routine inspection. NASA and CSA have teamed up to take clear photos and examine the damage caused.

"Regardless of the impact, the results of ongoing analyzes indicate that the arm's performance remains unaffected," CSA said in a blog post.

CSA officials called this incident a 'lucky strike'. Because the robotic arm has a fairly small size with a length of 17.6 meters and a diameter of 35 cm.

The problem of space debris cannot be underestimated, in addition to endangering the lives of astronauts and the Earth if they fall at any time. The reason is that a lot of space debris is found even circling the Earth at a fairly high speed.

Moreover, nowadays more and more companies are launching small-sized satellites. NASA records that there are more than 23,000 objects floating in low-Earth orbit.

"The threat of collision is taken very seriously. Although a number of maximum precautions were taken to reduce the potential for a collision with the ISS, collisions with small objects did occur," the Canadian space agency said on its official website.

This is not the first time that space debris has almost endangered the lives of astronauts. Some time ago space junk almost hit the Crew Dragon capsule that carried four NASA astronauts from Earth to the ISS.

Although this time the ISS was lucky enough because this incident did not threaten the lives of the seven astronauts there. However, the potential threat from space debris continues to lurk every year.

Last year, the ISS had to perform three emergency maneuvers to avoid a collision with space debris at an altitude of 450 km. The detected object is small, but moves at high speed and can do significant damage.