Space debris went hurtling past the International Space Station and apparently gave the astronauts aboard a scare, similar to the sci-fi film, "Gravity." Debris from a discarded weather satellite almost hit the orbiting space lab where two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut had to huddle inside a Soyuz spacecraft for safety, ready to take an emergency trip back to Earth. 

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Space debris are scattered in lower Earth orbit that are left over from past space flights, spanning more than 60 years of space launches and missions leading to this space junk problem. Apparently, this is the fourth time in ISS history during its 16 years in operation that its crew have taken shelter in its Soyuz space capsule from flying debris, threatening to smash into the orbiting lab, reveals Wired.

The US$150 billion space station could suffer this catastrophic failure when debris zooming into its orbital placement will collide into the space lab says Express, as debris often travel thousands of miles per hour in space. This scare on July 16 and this debris threat only missed the space station by one and a half miles, making the space station vulnerable to a deadly collision, according to CBC News.

However, NASA officials already detected this space debris headed towards the space station ahead of time, where the ISS crew will have enough time and warning to change its positions from this deadly projectile. In this instance, this object hurtling toward the ISS was detected 90 minutes before potential threatening impact.

NASA officials revealed that mission control has tracked a flying fragment from an old weather satellite where it was predicted to have a possible conjunction with the space station at 8:01 A.M. EDT on yesterday. 

Flight Director Ed Van Cise sent a command to Commander Gennady Padalka and One-Year crew members NASA's Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko to seek shelter at the docked Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft as a precautionary measure.

After their ordeal, they departed the emergency shelter where the astronauts reconfigured the space station to return to normal operations.

To date, the ISS crew only has three members. Usually, the crew is composed of six astronauts at any given time. On July 22, a new set of crew members from the Expedition 44 that are composed of astronauts from the U.S., Japan and Russia, will be taken aboard the Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft, that is set to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

TagsISS, International Space Station, flying debris junk astronauts space station, evacuate astronauts space station space debris, NASA, space debris, space junk, Space Junk Almost Hit Space Station; Astronauts Evacuated