How does the international space station not get hit by meteors?

Question

And other space debris?

Answer 1

It does get hit. However:

Firstly, space is BIG. Compared to the volume of space the ISS is tiny. The chances of direct collision are miniscule. Even during a meteor shower such as the perseids there are not that many meteors passing through any given ISS-sized portion of space.

Secondly, meteors are TINY. Very few of them are larger than a grain of sand. What that means is that it is relatively simple to design the skin of a spacecraft or satellite to withstand the impact. What they tend to do is have multiple thin layers of material on the outer skin. That serves to lessen the impact because as the meteor punctures each layer it loses momentum. Most meteors never penetrate the pressurised sections of the station. If they do, the station will be able to retain pressure for a long time. The Apollo spacecraft was designed to retain cabin pressure for up to fifteen minutes even if there was a half-inch hole punched right through the pressure vessel.

What about debris from other spacecraft? Well, most of those bits are on similar orbital paths, so they strike with relatively low energy. Any piece large enough to be a real danger is tracked and recorded so someone somewhere knows exactly where it is. Any potential collisions can therefore be flagged up well in advance.

So, the space station does get hit, but infrequently, and it is designed to withstand such impacts.

Answer 2

it must get hit by small meteors, I'm guessing its built tough enough to withstand all but the largest or fastest, get hit by 1 of them though and ya gotta be the unluckiest guy in space

Answer 3

I think they calcuate when they see a meteor far away, they scan it and use mathmatical problems to know where the meteor is going to hit and I guess they change the space station to move.

Answer 4

they just reported a "large tear" in the ISS just last week.
so its possible that it could be caused by debris.

I'm unsure otherwise