ISS near-collision with Cosmos ? r/b

Terry Pritchard (terry.pritchard@home.com)
Wed, 14 Jul 1999 07:55:48 -0400

The June 21 issue of AW&ST (p.22) describes an incident in which ISS passed
within 7km of a Russian upper stage rocket body.  Apparently the Space
Command folks identified the event well ahead of time, but when the ISS
control centers sent commands to execute an avoidance maneuver, the FGB
computer rejected it - something to do with the software not having been
updated to account for the Unity module.

The incident must have been quite a tense one, as the original USAF
prediction was for 1km separation!

Has anyone figured out which Russian booster was involved?  The article
doesn't give any account of the date, time, or position except to say it
happened "last week".

-Terry Pritchard