"Our calculations have been correct - the object flew past the station," Nikolai Ivanov said, adding that the ISS crew had not been instructed to take pictures of Hitch Hiker as it was moving at a very high speed.
"The speed was more than 14 km [9 miles] per second, and it was impossible to record it," Ivanov said.
He added that the U.S. Space Catalogue contained more than 10,000 various objects of different size, including the ISS.
"Only 10% of these objects, each of which has a number, are operable spacecraft, and the rest are just 'space garbage'," said Ivanov.
He said that if the mission control calculations had been incorrect, the satellite could have pierced the ISS, and added that Russian and American monitoring systems had been controlling the situation during the satellite flight.
"The ISS had a special procedure, developed in advance, for emergency maneuvers to swerve away from 'space garbage'," Ivanov said. "The ISS has used six such maneuvers in its history - four with the help of Progress spacecraft and two using shuttles."
