Space Station Gets Nudge to Avoid Junk
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NASA decided to move the international space station to dodge a piece of orbiting debris lost by a spacewalking astronaut on Sunday.
The shoebox-sized space junk, part of a foot-restraint system, and the space station, which is docked to the space shuttle Discovery, were both orbiting at speeds of about 5 miles per second.
NASA said a collision was unlikely but decided to move up by several hours a scheduled maneuver to boost the station’s orbit using the shuttle’s rocket engines.
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