After the impact of debris, Chinese astronauts made emergency repairs to the space station
Following the impact of an unknown item on its solar panels late last year, the Tiangong space station in China had a partial power outage.
In order to fix the solar wings that were affixed to the
core module but had been harmed by space debris, the Chinese crew of the space
station conducted two spacewalks this past winter.
China had to send its astronauts on two spacewalks to repair the Tiangong space
station's core module, Tianhe, after the impact caused a partial loss of power.
The recent spacewalks were historic since they were the first time Chinese
astronauts had to do orbital maintenance. The core module's solar wings have
been successfully repaired, as reported by the state-run media outlet Xinhua.
According to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), the Shenzhou 17 crew members—astronauts Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin—spent about 16 hours attached to the space station during the two spacewalks, the first on December 1, 2023, and the second on March 1, 2024. Xinhua reports that the damage to the space station's solar arrays has been repaired, with the source identified as the "impact of space debris on the solar wing's power cables."
When the space station was struck and what specifically might have struck the solar arrays are unknown. Since December is when the first spacewalk took place, the impact most likely happened before then. It might have been the product of human-caused space debris or a micrometeorite that happened to arise naturally in orbit.
According to Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of CMSA, during a recent news conference, China's Tiangong space station has carried out a number of manoeuvres to avoid space debris, as Xinhua writes. The Chinese space agency has taken proactive steps to reduce the risks associated with space debris in response to the most recent incident. According to Xinhua, "space debris protection reinforcements for extravehicular piping, cables and critical equipment during their extravehicular activities" will be carried on a future mission to the station.
As per Lin, the space agency has enhanced its capacity to forecast the orbits of the space station and adjacent entities, optimised the protocols for space collision alerts and avoidance manoeuvres, and reduced the rate of false alarms by thirty percent, as reported by Xinhua. CMSA will also examine Tiangong from the outside and assess the possibility of tiny debris strikes using the high-definition camera on the robotic arm of the space station and the astronauts' hand-held extravehicular cameras.
As more spacecraft are deployed into orbit, the risks posed
by space debris are mounting, raising the possibility of an orbital collision.
A retired Russian satellite nearly collided with NASA's TIMED spacecraft
earlier this year, resulting in thousands of space debris bits drifting in
orbit.