CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A piece of space junk forced the three
space station astronauts to seek emergency shelter Thursday.
For nearly an hour, the American and two Russians hunkered down in
their Soyuz capsule, which is docked to the
International Space Station, in case they had to make a quick
getaway. The fragment from an old Russian weather satellite ended up
passing harmlessly, about 1½ miles away.
"Happy there was no impact," NASA astronaut
Scott Kelly said via Twitter. "Great coordination with
international ground teams. Excellent training."
It's only the fourth time in the 16-year history of the space
station that a crew has had to rush into a Russian Soyuz for
protection from potentially dangerous debris. The exact size of the
object was unknown, according to a NASA spokesman.
Normally, NASA learns about incoming junk sooner, and the space
station moves out of the way. But there wasn't time for that
Thursday; the crew was notified just 1½ hours in advance.
The three men were already up and working when Mission Control
ordered them into the Soyuz on Thursday morning. They did not need
to put on their Soyuz flight suits, and there was no rush, said NASA
spokesman
Dan Huot.
The all-clear came 1½ hours after the initial alert, around 8 a.m.
EDT. It took the astronauts more than an hour to get their
250-mile-high home back to normal operation, following the "shelter
in place," as NASA calls it. Research work that was interrupted will
be rescheduled, according to Mission Control.
Kelly and his Russia roommates,
Mikhail Kornienko and
Gennady Padalka, are getting used to junk in their neighborhood.
Twice since the trio arrived in March, the space station has had to
dodge pieces of orbiting debris, in April and June. Three more men
are due to arrive next week.
The last time a station crew had to jump into their Soyuz for
protection was in 2012.
Space junk is at an all-time high because of all the clutter in
orbit, the result of accidentally colliding spacecraft, exploding
satellites and rocket stages, and deliberate run-ins ordered up as
tests by China and the United States several years back. Just last
February, a U.S. military meteorological satellite blew up,
presumably because of a failed battery, scattering dozens of pieces
of debris.
The
Defense Department is currently tracking about 22,000 dead
satellites, spent rocket bodies and all other forms of orbital
debris. These items are at least 4 inches across. NASA estimates
there could be more than 500,000 smaller objects, nearly a half-inch
and bigger, that could pack a dangerous punch to an orbiting craft
like the space station, given the high orbital speed of 17,500 mph.
Satellite makers now try to make their spacecraft as non-breakable
as possible.
Kelly and Kornienko are four months into a one-year space station
mission. It will be a record for NASA, but not for the Russians, who
have a history of long space flights.
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Online:
NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html