A Russian satellite in orbit, broke up into more than 100 pieces, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) to take precautionary measures, the US space agency said.

There were no immediate details about what caused the Russian Earth observation satellite to break up. RESOURCE-P1, which was decommissioned in 2022. The US space agency announced today that there is no immediate threat as it monitors the debris cluster.

The incident occurred around 10 am. time zone (Mountain Time) (1600 GMT) yesterday Wednesday, the Space Administration said. It happened in orbit near the space station, forcing the American astronauts aboard to take refuge in their spacecraft for about an hour, NASA’s space station office said.

The radars of the US space monitoring company LeoLabs detected the satellite releasing several pieces of debris by 6 p.m. time zone (Mountain Time), the company said.

The US space agency, which has its own global network of space-based detection radars, said the satellite immediately generated “over 100 pieces of detectable debris”.

Large events that create orbital debris are rare, but they are a growing concern as space fills with satellite networks vital to everyday life on Earth, from broadband internet and communications to basic navigation services.

Russia sparked international outrage in 2021 when it hit one of its decommissioned satellites in orbit with a ground-based anti-satellite missile, creating thousands of debris to test a weapons system ahead of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The prospect of satellite conflicts and space warfare has increased the urgency of calls by space advocates and lawyers for countries to create an international mechanism to manage space traffic, which currently does not exist.