Crew Used a Simple Maneuver to Dodge Debris, Astronaut Says

The first shuttle astronauts forced to steer clear of space junk said Friday they had ample time to dodge a Soviet rocket chunk but warned that debris could be a threat to future crews.

Mission commander John O. Creighton said it was “very simple” to maneuver Discovery away from the van-size piece of a Cosmos rocket earlier this month. He lowered the ship’s orbit by a mile with more than two hours to spare.

“I really didn’t think twice about it up there,” Creighton said at a post-flight press conference, nine days after the crew returned to Earth.

“You know that’s always a possibility, and you train for it,” he said. “In this particular case, we just happened to execute it.”

Discovery and the rocket debris ended up passing within 10 miles of each other on Sept. 16. If the shuttle had not changed course, the debris would have come within 1.4 miles of the ship. National Aeronautics and Space Administration rules limit encounters to no closer than 1.6 miles.

Astronaut Mark N. Brown said that, particularly with the planned space station, which will be less maneuverable than a shuttle, NASA will need to study the potential problem of collisions with debris more carefully.

The five astronauts, who dispatched an ozone-monitoring satellite, said they were struck by the beauty of Earth but also by the amount of haze surrounding it.

“Of all the flights I’ve been on, this is by far the worst the atmosphere has looked this time of the season,” said James F. Buchli, a four-time space flier.

Pilot Kenneth S. Reightler Jr. said his first space trip deepened his concern for the environment.

So far, eight of the 10 scientific instruments on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite have been activated.