The head of Russia’s space agency has confirmed that the International Space Station performed a manoeuvre on Friday to temporarily swerve away from a fragment of a U.S. launch vehicle.
The station’s orbit dropped by 310 metres (339 yards) for less than three minutes to avoid a close encounter with a fragment from a U.S. launch vehicle sent into space in 1994, Dmitry Roscosmos said.
Space junks are discarded launch vehicles or parts of a spacecraft that float around in space and risk colliding with satellites or the International Space Station.
Space junk forced NASA on Tuesday to postpone a spacewalk placed to replace a faulty antenna at the ISS.
