A Russian satellite broke into more than 100 pieces in orbit, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to evacuate, the US space agency said.
So far, there is no information on what caused the breakup of the Russian Earth observation satellite RESURS-P1, which was decommissioned in 2022.
The US Space Command said there is no immediate threat as it monitors where the satellite debris is going.
The Russian satellite disintegrated on Wednesday around 18:XNUMX CET, the Space Command announced.
It happened in orbit near the space station, forcing the American astronauts to take shelter in their spacecraft for about an hour, NASA said.
The radars of the US space tracking company LeoLabs detected the satellite that released several fragments until two hours after midnight CET, the company said.
The US Space Command, which has a global network of space tracking radars, said the satellite immediately generated "over 100 pieces of trackable debris".
Large events that create debris in orbit are rare, but they are a growing concern as space becomes crowded with satellite networks vital to everyday life on Earth, from broadband Internet and communications to basic navigation services.
Russia sparked international outrage in 2021 when it shot down one of its defunct satellites in orbit with a ground-based anti-satellite missile to test a weapons system ahead of a 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
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