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Shuttle Discovery is racing toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station today while NASA engineers determine whether the sprawling outpost might have to be maneuvered to avoid a piece of Soviet space junk.
NASA officials say the space junk is expected to pass within about a half-mile of the International Space Station at 3:14 a.m. Tuesday. U.S. Strategic Command uses powerful radars to track thousands of pieces of debris in orbits that ring Earth and issued a warning to NASA after Discovery's Sunday night launch.
The warnings are issued if debris is expected to pass through an area extending 15 miles on either side of the space station or about a half mile above or below it.
If NASA decides a collision-avoidance maneuver is required, then it would be performed at 9:54 p.m. tonight.
The conjunction is the second in the past week. The resident crew of the station sheltered in a Russian Soyuz lifeboat last week when a piece of space junk from an old U.S. upper stage motor flew within several miles of the outpost.
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