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The International Space Station moved Monday to avoid orbital debris.
In a blog post, NASA said the ISS Progress 81 thrusters fired for over five minutes in what it called a Pre-Determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver (PDAM).
The ISS shifted an "extra measure of distance away" from the predicted track of a fragment of Russian Cosmos 1408 debris.
The thruster fired at 8:25 p.m. ET.
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The International Space Station is pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly around of the orbiting lab that took place on Nov. 8, 2021. (NASA)
There was no impact on space station operations.
Without the maneuver, it was predicted that the fragment could have passed within about 3 miles of the station.
The PDAM increased the station’s altitude by two-tenths of a mile at apogee – the ISS is in low Earth orbit – and eight-tenths of a mile at perigee. The apogee is the point in the elliptical orbit path of a satellite at which it is farthest from the Earth.
The International Space Station photographed by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft after unlocking Oct. 4, 2018. (NASA)
According to NASA, Cosmos 1408 was a Russian ELINT Tselina-D satellite launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome.
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It was designed to determine the precise location, activity and other details of radio emitters. That data would be stored on board and downloaded to Russian ground stations.
The International Space Station photographed by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft after undocking on Oct. 4, 2018. (Credits: NASA/Roscosmos)
On Nov. 15, 2021, Cosmos 1408 – no longer operational – was destroyed in a Russian kinetic anti-satellite test.
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That test generated a cloud of debris, including some 1,500 pieces of trackable size.
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