"This evening, the International Space Station's Progress 81 thrusters fired for 5 minutes, 5 seconds in a Pre-Determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver to provide the complex an extra measure of distance away from the predicted track of a fragment of Russian Cosmos 1408 debris," according to a space agency blog.
Space debris has become a major concern for human space travel and unmanned satellites as more and more manmade objects are launched into orbit.
More than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris or space junk are tracked by the Department of Defense's global Space Surveillance Network sensors, according to NASA.
"Much more debris -- too small to be tracked, but large enough to threaten human spaceflight and robotic missions -- exists in the near-Earth space environment."
The International Space Station is hosting two American astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut. who traveled onboard SpaceX's Endurance Crew Dragon's Crew-5 mission Oct. 5.
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