International Space Station safe from orbiting space debris
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FILE - This Feb. 19. 2010 file photo provided by NASA shows the International Space Station with Earth's horizon as a backdrop. Several power systems have been shut down aboard the International Space Station after a cooling system malfunctioned. NASA says in a posting on its website that one of two cooling loops aboard the space station was shut down Saturday, July 31, 2010. A module that pumps ammonia coolant to prevent equipment from overheating was still shut down early Sunday, Aug. 1. (AP Photo/NASA, File) (AP Photo/NASA, File)
Russia's Mission Control Center said Wednesday it dropped an earlier plan to move the International Space Station into a different orbit to avoid possible collision with space debris after additional calculations showed that there was no such threat.
Mission Control Center said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that a fragment of space debris would fly by too far to pose any danger to the space outpost, so a plan to fire booster rockets to carry out the maneuver on Thursday at 07:22 a.m. Moscow time (0322 GMT) was canceled.
The space station performs evasive maneuvers when the likelihood of a collision exceeds one in 10,000.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}NASA estimates that more than 21,000 fragments of orbital debris larger than 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) are stuck in earth's orbit, and experts worry that orbiting junk is becoming a growing problem for the space industry.
There are six astronauts -- three Russians, two Americans and one from Japan -- onboard the orbiting laboratory.