Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Shuttle Swerves to Dodge Space Junk

The space shuttle Discovery’s astronauts had to swerve to avoid a piece of space junk, one day before they were due to come home. Mission Control told shuttle commander David Walker to change course after determining the debris would pass too close to the spaceship and its five-man crew. Under NASA flight rules, a shuttle can fly no closer than 1.3 miles above, below or beside another orbiting object, or 2.5 miles behind another object. The shuttle was scheduled to return to Florida’s Kennedy Space Center today, one week after blasting into orbit. Weather forecasters said low clouds over the spaceport could delay landing.