International Space Station crew forced to take shelter from space junk
US astronaut Donald Pettit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers pictured on Dec. 20 2011, a day before they left earth for the Internatonal Space Station.
Six astronauts have been forced to take shelter in escape capsules as a piece of space junk threatens to hit the International Space Station.
According to Associated Press, NASA says a discarded piece of a Russian rocket was expected to come closest to the station at 2.38am EDT on Friday.
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The reports says it is unlikely to come near enough to pose a threat, but the astronauts have been told to climb into two Soyuz vehicles and be ready to rocket back to earth, as a precaution.
The station commander Dan Burbank was informed of the issue around noon on Friday, leaving too little time for the station to move out of the way in a debris-avoidance maneuver, Florida Today explains.
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The Voice of Russia says that there are currently six people on board the space station.
It names them as American commander, Daniel Burbank and five experts, including Russians Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Oleg Kononenko; American Donald Pettit; and Dutchman André Kuipers from the European Space Agency.
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