Watch: International Space Station lowers orbit to avoid space debris collision

The engines of the International Space Station's Zvezda service module, managed by Roscosmos, performed a critical operation to manoeuvre the station away from a potential collision with an unnamed space debris on Thursday.

At 11 am EDT (8:30 pm according to Indian time) on Thursday, the Zvezda module's engines fired for 21.5 seconds, altering the station's course to avoid an expected orbital debris fragment. The operation was captured on camera by Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin, the Russian state-owned media TASS shared.

The engines were activated at 18:00 Moscow time, providing an impulse of 0.3 m/s during the 21.5-second burn, the Russian space agency confirmed in a statement. The preliminary data indicated that the ISS's orbit height decreased by 500 meters, resulting in adjusted orbit parameters with a minimum altitude of 414.37 km and a maximum of 434.59 km, Roscosmos added.

ALSO READ- Chandrayaan 3: Progress report on India's lunar Mission - 5 major updates

Who is aboard the space station presently?

The 68th long-term expedition crew is currently on board the ISS, comprising Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev, Dmitry Petelin, and Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Francisco Rubio, Steven Bowen, and Woody Hoburg, as well as UAE astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi.

The operation did not impact the arrival schedule of the Roscosmos Progress 85 cargo vessel or NASA's SpaceX Crew-7 mission. The Russian Progress cargo craft successfully docked with the station's Zvezda service module at 11:45pm ET on Thursday (9:15 am on Friday).

However, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the postponement of the launch of a new crew of four to the space station. The launch is now scheduled for Saturday, for SpaceX's seventh crew rotation mission to the microgravity laboratory for the US space agency.

NASA's SpaceX Crew 7

Named Crew-7, the mission will be commanded by American Jasmin Moghbeli and includes Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, Satoshi Furukawa of Japan and Konstantin Borisov of Russia.

As part of a commercial crew program implemented to reduce dependence on Russian rockets for astronaut transportation after the conclusion of the Space Shuttle programme in 2011, NASA takes Elon Musk's SpaceX taxi service.