Giant piece of Japanese satellite may crash into ISS

A giant piece of a Japanese satellite poses a serious threat to the International Space Station. Supposedly, the piece of the space garbage may near the ISS in less than 30 hours.

The message about a fragment of space garbage entering the potentially dangerous area for the station, which is called the "red corridor", was transmitted by U.S. ballistics, reports Firstnews. The question of the need to modify the ISS orbit will be resolved in the next few hours, after a special ballistic analysis, FederalPress reports.

"The situation is completely under control," a spokesperson for Mission Control said. According to him, there is nothing critical in the detection of a potentially dangerous for the ISS fragment. The station may or may not perform a maneuver to avoid the collision with the fragment of the satellite, the official added.

In March, the ISS successfully avoided a collision with space debris. The fragments of Kosmos-2251, a Russian satellite, passed near the station. The crew were staying in the ships docked to the ISS.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers, US astronaut Donald Pettit were on board the Soyuz TMA-031M. Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin of Russia and American Daniel Burbank were on board the Soyuz-TMA22.