ISS fires thrusters to dodge dangerous space debris

The International Space Station took evasive action to dodge a potentially dangerous piece of space debris. The orbiting space station was A Russian Progress cargo ship that's docked to the ISS fired its thrusters for 5.5 minutes on Tuesday.

A statement from Nasa said: "The Progress 89 thrusters were fired at 2:09 p.m. CST today for five minutes, 31 seconds, to raise the orbit of the International Space Station to provide an extra margin of distance from a piece of orbital debris from a defunct defence meteorological satellite that broke up in 2015.

"The Pre-determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver (PDAM) was conducted in coordination with NASA, Roscosmos (the Russian space agency) and the other space station partners."

READ MORE: NASA is sending a spacecraft to an asteroid said to be worth quintillions

Without the manoeuvre, ballistics officials estimated that the fragment could have come within around 2 ½ miles of the station.

Nasa said the manoeuvre had no impact on station operations and will not affect today’s launch of the Progress 90 cargo craft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Progress 90 will carry fresh food and supplies for the Expedition 72 crew on the space station and is expected to remain docked for six months. When Progress returns to Earth, it will be loaded with trash to burn up in Earth's atmosphere naturally.