Space Station to Fire Up Engine to Avoid Collision With Iridium Space Debris

The International Space Station will be firing up its engines briefly Friday to avoid a piece of debris from the private U.S. satellite Iridium.

Orbit boost for debris avoidance manoeuvre for International Space Station, 54 secs firing of Russian Zvezda engines

The soft-ball sized space debris was on a path that would have brought it about less than a mile close to the station, the NASA said.

A collision with a debris can cause a deadly puncture to the space station, thus Mission Control has told astronauts to fire the station's engine to avoid the possibility of the station colliding with it.

The problem of space junk has again caught public attention with the news of the impending re-entry of Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft. Russian officials estimate that the 14.5-ton craft which became stuck in Earth orbit shortly after its Nov. 8 launch, will re-enter the atmosphere in the next few days.

NB: This the 13th time in the ISS's lifetime that a debris avoidance manoeuvre has been necessary

Phobos-Grunt's crash will be the third uncontrolled satellite re-entry in four months, following NASA's defunct UARS craft in September and the dead German ROSAT satellite in October.

According to NASA estimates, Earth's orbital debris cloud contains more than 500,000 pieces larger than a marble and more than 20,000 at least as big as a softball.