CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA gave the all-clear to the international space station Monday, telling its astronauts they wouldn’t need to steer away from an orbiting piece of satellite junk.
Experts had been keeping close tabs on the debris all day, at one point thinking it might pass within a half-mile of the space station today, just ahead of the shuttle Discovery’s arrival. But as they studied the path of the small debris from an old busted-up Soviet satellite, engineers ascertained it would remain at a safe distance.
A maneuver by the space station would have forced Discovery, which is delivering one last set of solar wings, to adjust its course for docking late this afternoon.
On Thursday, the three space station residents had to move into their emergency getaway capsule because another piece of space junk came uncomfortably close at 220 miles above Earth. In that case, there was short notice and the astronauts did not have enough time to steer out of the way.
Flight director Paul Dye was not reading too much into the recent flurry of debris events.
“We seem to have a bit more than we’ve had in the past,” Dye said Monday evening. “It’s a little bit like traffic on the freeway. Sometimes it’s bad and sometimes it’s not, and sometimes you can figure out why and sometimes you’re not sure where it came from.”
Meanwhile, aboard Discovery, the seven astronauts conducted an in-depth inspection of their ship’s wings and nose with a laser-tipped boom Monday. It’s standard procedure the day after launch to check for any damage that may have occurred during liftoff.
LeRoy Cain, chairman of the mission management team, said it appears, at least initially, that Discovery made it through the launch “very, very clean.”
The shuttle flight has been reduced by one day because of repeated delays in taking off, and three spacewalks are now planned instead of four. Mission managers said the astronauts still should be able to complete most of their objectives during their 13 days in orbit.
