MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th July, 2020) An orbital correction of the International Space Station (ISS) conducted on Friday was meant to prevent a possible collision with a fragment of the Russian Proton rocket, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spokesperson told Sputnik.
On Friday, Russian space agency Roscosmos announced that the orbit altitude of the ISS was increased by 900 meters (0.5 miles) using the engines of the docked Progress MS-14 resupply spacecraft, in order to avoid a collision with space debris. Roscosmos did not specify the type of debris.
A NASA spokesperson told Sputnik that the debris was a fragment of a stage of the Russian Proton rocket launched in September 1987.
Over two dozen orbital corrections made to avoid collisions with debris have been performed since the ISS entered into service. The space station maintains an orbit with an average altitude of 400 kilometers (248 miles).
