“Rubbish” Story

 At night from Friday to Saturday (Nov.6-7, ed.) we were about to come across at a piece of space junk.

It happened that on Monday morning the Space Center in Houston got in touch with us.
They said: “According to our data, an approximately 1cm fragment will appear in a “red zone” of the station, which is 1 kilometer from the ISS.”

Naturally, we got anxious. Our American colleagues took alarm. The Houston specialists said that the space junk had to enter the “red zone” from 03.48 to 03.50 at night. (GMT system is used on the ISS - ed.) It means the guys from the American segment had to move to the Russian segment by that time and take their places in our “Soyuz” spaceships (the Russian spaceships is the only safe place for the crew in emergencies at the station – ed)

Houston ordered us to close all hatches at the American segment and be ready to move. Our Mission Control Center (MCC) also recommended us to pack the stuff, remove air pipes – in case of station decompression…

Click to enlarge

Romka said: “Hurrah! I’m going to get my stuff! We’ll be home soon!” And a happy Romka has run away – he misses home ..(Roman Romanenko has been at the station for more than 6 months, he is scheduled to be back to the Earth on the 1st of December – ed)

Later in the evening, Houston communicated with us again: “Guys, relax. We revised our calculations and believe the fragment will pass by you. Just in case, give us a call at 3 O’clock at night, then we’ll decide what is to be done.”

I set an alarm clock and woke up. The Americans were talking with the MCC, saying: “Go on sleeping, false alarm”.

I got in touch with our MCC. They said: “Don’t worry, everything is fine.” We have the right guys working there, always able to find necessary words and calm us down.” Thank them for this!

Such a “rubbish” story happened :)

And we keep on working.

Via Russian space agency Roscosmos