A defunct Russian satellite broke up into nearly 200 pieces in low orbit, forcing astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) to seek shelter in their spacecraft.

The debris cloud caused by the break-up also adds to the escalating space junk issue. The European Space Agency (ESA) warned earlier this month that the risk of “catastrophic damage to space assets” was increasing.

This was almost the case yesterday when the six US astronauts onboard the ISS were told to return to their spacecraft as a Russian satellite, Resurs-P1, had broken up.

LeoLabs, a US space-tracking firm, estimated the time of the breakup at between 9.05am and 8.51pm Eastern time on 26 June. By 27 June, LeoLabs had tracked at least 180 pieces of debris, with that number potentially increasing.

Resurs-P1 is a 6,000kg Russian satellite launched for Earth observation in 2013. It was decommissioned in 2021 and since then had been orbiting Earth, slowly getting lower for an eventual atmospheric re-entry.

The...