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Astronaut Scott Kelly sits inside a Soyuz simulator at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center AP

Astronauts had to hide from space junk that threatened to hit the ISS

It was a bit of an emergency situation.

A PIECE OF space junk forced the three space station astronauts to seek emergency shelter today.

For nearly an hour, the American and two Russians hunkered down in their Soyuz capsule, which is docked to the International Space Station, in case they had to make a quick getaway.

The fragment from an old Russian weather satellite ended up passing harmlessly, about 1½ miles away.

It’s only the fourth time in the 16-year history of the space station that a crew has had to rush into a Russian Soyuz for protection from potentially dangerous debris.

The exact size of the object was unknown, according to a NASA spokesman.

Normally, NASA learns about incoming junk sooner, and the space station moves out of the way. But there wasn’t time for that today; the crew was notified just 1½ hours in advance.

All-clear

The three men were already up and working when Mission Control ordered them into the Soyuz on Thursday morning. They did not need to put on their Soyuz flight suits, and there was no rush, said NASA spokesman Dan Huot.

The all-clear came 1½ hours after the initial alert, around 8 am EDT. It took the astronauts more than an hour to get their 250-mile-high home back to normal operation, following the “shelter in place,” as NASA calls it.

Research work that was interrupted will be rescheduled, according to Mission Control.

Space junk

Kelly and his Russian roommates, Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka, are getting used to junk in their neighborhood.

Twice since the trio arrived in March, the space station has had to dodge pieces of orbiting debris, in April and June. Three more men are due to arrive next week.

The last time a station crew had to jump into their Soyuz for protection was in 2012.

The US Defense Department is currently tracking about 22,000 dead satellites, spent rocket bodies and all other forms of orbital debris.

Read: “A giant surprise”: New photos reveal previously unseen mountains on Pluto>

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    Mute Pauliebhoy
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    Jul 16th 2015, 8:23 PM

    They would have been fine if they had an inanimate carbon rod

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    Mute Graham
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    Jul 16th 2015, 8:34 PM

    “In Rod We Trust”

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    Mute Rob
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    Jul 16th 2015, 10:41 PM

    Careful…they’re ruffled.

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    Mute Paul Roche
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    Jul 16th 2015, 8:27 PM

    Somebody should make an unbelievable but Oscar winning movie about this sort of thing.

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    Jul 16th 2015, 8:03 PM

    Must not be a nice feeling sitting up there in space waiting for a possible impact.

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    Mute Irish Grave Markers
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    Jul 16th 2015, 9:14 PM

    American space junk, Russian space junk…all made in Taiwan!

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    Mute Wayne Kerr
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    Jul 16th 2015, 10:17 PM

    They didn’t have to “hide from the space junk” as it wasn’t actively searching for them to kill them. Headlines are getting stranger by the day.

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    Mute Marc Walsh
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    Jul 16th 2015, 8:49 PM

    How the fu(k do they know it’s Russian junk? Haven’t the yanks being littering earth orbit for 50 years

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    Mute Isaac Smyth
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    Jul 16th 2015, 9:49 PM

    Apparantly it was homophobic Russian junk.

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    Mute Stephen O'Sullivan
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    Jul 17th 2015, 2:54 AM

    Marc. Would it satisfy you to know that RT Russia Today are reporting that according to a source at the Russian Mission Control Center the debris was a piece from an old Soviet weather satellite “Meteor-2,” which was launched into space in 1979.

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    Mute Pete Gibson
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    Jul 17th 2015, 5:16 AM

    They can tell by its orbit:
    “Oh yes that must be a piece of the Cosmos 123 spy sat. launched from Bikanour at 6.12am on 3rd Feb. 1964″

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    Mute Pete Gibson
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    Jul 17th 2015, 5:19 AM

    Didn’t see your comment before I wrote mine Stephen.

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    Mute Ronan Friel
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    Jul 17th 2015, 7:07 AM

    Real life Intersteller

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    Mute Glenard
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    Jul 16th 2015, 8:31 PM

    Close encounters

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    Mute niall mullins
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    Jul 16th 2015, 10:25 PM

    Close encounters of a turd kind when they flush their space toilet.

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