Space Station to Move to Avoid Debris

A picture by Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers from the International Space Station shows southern lights between Antarctica and Australia.

MOSCOW (AP) The Russian space program's Mission Control Center says it will move the International Space Station into a different orbit to avoid possible collision with a fragment of debris.

Mission Control Center spokeswoman Nadyezhda Zavyalova said the Russian Zvevda module will fire booster rockets to carry out the operation Thursday at 07:22 a.m. Moscow time (0322 GMT).

[READ: International Space Station Nearly Struck by Space Junk]

The space station performs evasive maneuvers when the likelihood of a collision exceeds one in 10,000.

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.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read more here:
Space Station to Move to Avoid Debris