[Assam] Space station crew avoids close call with space junk - Mike Fincke is safe

[Chan Mahanta]

Thank goodness! I just saw the report and was wondering about Mike 
and the crew!!








At 1:07 PM -0700 3/12/09, Dilip and Dil Deka wrote:
>Mike Fincke is safe.
>
>
>Space station crew avoids close call with space junk Crew evacuates 
>to escape module as space debris approaches 03:02 PM CDT on 
>Thursday, March 12, 2009Associated Press WASHINGTON -- The crew of 
>the international space station survived a close call with space 
>junk Thursday.
>
>NASA
>The International Space Station as it orbits the Earth.
>The three astronauts briefly took refuge inside a Russian escape 
>capsule before returning inside the space station. Officials moved 
>them into the capsule because they were worried that the orbiting 
>outpost might get hit with a small piece of passing space debris.
>"We've cleared," station commander Mike Fincke radioed to Mission 
>Control in Houston as he prepared to go back inside.
>The debris measured about a third of an inch, part of a motor that 
>helped boost a satellite into the proper orbit, said NASA spokesman 
>Kyle Herring. Tiny pieces of debris could cause a fatal loss of air 
>pressure in the station.
>Also Online
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>Mike Fincke bio
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>Video
>Slideshows
>Blogs
>NASA usually tries to move the space station out of the way of space 
>junk, but they got this warning Wednesday night when it was too late 
>to move the station, Herring said.
>Instead, NASA sent the crew to the Soyuz capsule, a move that has 
>been done in the past, Herring said. A Soyuz capsule is parked at 
>the space station to serve as a lifeboat if needed for the station's 
>residents.
>The piece of debris was expected to come within the 2.8 mile box of 
>space around the station that makes up NASA's danger zone, Herring 
>said.
>"We were looking out the Soyuz window," Fincke radioed to Houston. 
>"We didn't see anything of course. We were wondering how close we 
>were."
>Because the U.S. Strategic Command, which monitors space debris, 
>could not get a good enough look at the debris, NASA may never know 
>exactly how close it came, said NASA spokesman Josh Byerly. It was 
>traveling 5.5 miles per second-about 20,000 mph, according to Byerly.
>The debris is likely a tiny weight followed by a 39-inch string or 
>strand that was used to stabilize a global positioning satellite 
>placed in orbit in May 1993, said Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan 
>McDowell, who tracks all objects in orbit.
>One of the reasons NASA got such late warning on the debris is that 
>it is an unusual orbit that keeps dipping into the atmosphere and 
>changing, McDowell said. The GPS satellite went out of daily use in 
>January, he said.
>Fincke is one of two Americans living aboard the space station; the 
>third resident is Russian.
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