NASA had to delay its astronauts' spacewalk due to a piece of space debris that came dangerously close to the ISS. According to Space. com, it was a fragment of the Frigate upper stage, which flew at a distance of only 400 meters from the station.

It is noted that the “space walk” was canceled “at the last moment”. Astronauts Frank Rubio and Josh Kassada had to go into outer space in order to install a new solar panel on the station.. But when they were ready to leave, a command came from the mission control center to complete the work..

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Instead, the ISS took an emergency evasive maneuver to avoid a large piece of space debris.. Space Walk postponed to December 22.

Space debris is a fragment of the Fregat upper stage, 3.35 meters high, which is used when launching Soyuz and Zenith. It was expected to fly within 400 meters of the ISS, the threat level was assessed as "

According to David Huot, a spokesman for mission control at Johnson Space Center, the piece of debris has been tracked for the past few days and the threat level from it was in the green or yellow range, which did not require any precautions.. But on the morning of December 21, it moved into the red range, that is, it was urgently necessary to take measures that would allow the ISS to avoid colliding with it..

Recall that in October the ISS had to turn on the engine and make a maneuver to avoid a collision with a satellite fragment that Russia blew up during anti-satellite tests in November 2021.

On December 14, a coolant leak was registered in the Russian Soyuz docked to the ISS. This happened an hour before the Russian cosmonauts were supposed to go into outer space.. The "

Later, Russian media, citing sources, reported that the temperature in the Soyuz had risen to 50 degrees Celsius.. Roskomos denies this, estimating the temperature of the ship at 30 degrees Celsius.