By Duncan Geere, Wired UK

The astronauts inhabiting the International Space Station had to retreat into evacuation pods after a bit of space junk floated worryingly close to the station.

The six staff on the station climbed into the two Soyuz capsules docked on the ISS in case of just such an emergency, and waited the threat out. In the end, the debris sailed past the station, but at a distance of just 250 meters [820 feet]. Normally the ISS is able to maneuver out of the way of hazards, but NASA had only learned of the problem the previous day, leaving no time to change course.

Just 20 minutes before the object was predicted to arrive, commander Andrey Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyaev and Ronald Garan clambered into the Soyuz TMA-21 docked on the Poisk module. Sergei Volkov, Satoshi Furukawa and Michael Fossum climbed inside the Soyuz TMA-02M docked on the Rassvet module.

It marked only the second time that the inhabitants of the ISS have been forced into the lifeboats. The first was March 12, 2009.

Image: A map — not to scale — of space junk larger than 10 cm. (NASA)

Source: Wired UK

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