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

[Ram Sarangapani]

Whew! That was close. Best to Mike and his team, and we wish safe and sound
- back home.

--Ram

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 3:14 PM, Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:

> Thank goodness! I just saw the report and was wondering about Mike and the
> crew!!
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> 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
>> Interactive: Virtual tour of space station
>> Slideshow: Space Station
>> Expedition 18 Overview
>> Mike Fincke bio
>> Sandra Magnus bio
>> Yury Lonchakov bio
>> 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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