Astronauts take refuge in escape capsules as space station threatened by debris
A near miss with a piece of space junk unleashed high drama for the six astronauts manning the International Space Station more than 200 miles above the Earth’s surface.
The debris eventually passed the International Space Station within an estimated nine miles Photo: EPA
By Philip Sherwell, in New York
1:13PM GMT 24 Mar 2012
The crew members were scrambled into escape capsules ready to fire off for an emergency return to Earth after Nasa officials spotted a piece of space junk hurtling towards the path of the ISS.
The remnants of a discarded Russian satellite were picked up too late to manoeuvre the space station into a safer orbit.
Instead, the three Russian, two American and Dutch astronaut were ordered by ground control to take shelter in the emergency Soyuz spacecraft early today.
The debris eventually passed the ISS within an estimated nine miles.
Although nine miles sounds like a long distance on Earth, but in space where both the station and the junk were travelling at 17,500 miles an hour in orbit, nobody was taking any chances.
The incident highlighted growing concerns about a collision in space as a growing volume of such junk, mainly from old satellites, swirls around the planet.
Nasa says it is actively tracking some 22,000 pieces of space debris, but there are millions of objects left over from decades of space travel drifting in Earth's orbit.
They range in size from smaller than a centimetre across to large chunks of rockets, defunct satellites or discarded fuel tanks.
National Research Council warned recently that the increasing volume of space debris is endangering the work of the space station and satellites.
This is the third time in 12 years that astronauts have had to seek shelter from space junk. There was a much closer miss in June when a piece of debris came within 1,100ft of the platform.
After Friday’s incident, the astronauts were allowed to return to the main spacecraft at 02.38 GMT.
"Everything went by the book and as expected, the small piece of cosmos satellite debris passed the international space station without incident,” said a Nasa spokesman.
Next week an unmanned cargo vehicle is due to dock with the space station. The Automated Transfer Vehicle was launched on Friday by the European Space Agency from French Guiana.
The 20-ton vessel, named after 20th century Italian physicist Edoardo Amaldi, is the heaviest ever launch undertaken by the ESA and will carry vital supplies to the astronauts on-board space station.
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