23 March,2009 10:48 AM IST | | Agencies
Confronted with orbiting junk again, NASA ordered the astronauts aboard the linked space station and shuttle Discovery to move out of the way of a piece of debris yesterday.
Discovery's pilots fired their ship's thrusters to reorient the docked spacecraft to avoid a small piece from a 10-year-old Chinese rocket body that was due to pass uncomfortably close during today's planned spacewalk.
Mission Control said keeping the spacecraft in this position for about three hours -- with Discovery's belly facing forward -- would result in a slow, natural drag of about a foot per second, enough to get the complex out of the way of the 4-inch piece of junk.
Space junk has been a recurring problem for the space station, especially recently. Earlier this month, the three space station residents had to take shelter in their emergency getaway capsule when another piece of orbital debris seemed like it might come too close.
And just last week, right before Discovery's arrival, the space station almost had to dodge yet another piece of junk. The debris -- from an old busted-up Soviet satellite -- stayed at a safe distance.
"As far as I know, it's coincidental that we've had just a couple in this close timeframe," said shuttle commander Lee Archambault.
The latest episode occurred as NASA scrambled to put together a spacewalking repair plan for a jammed equipment platform at the space station.
