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Endeavour’s astronauts reshuffled a day of experiments Wednesday after Mission Control discovered that the original schedule would have brought the shuttle too close to a piece of space debris.
A scheduled jet firing that was part of a superfluid helium experiment the astronauts have worked on during their first two days in space was moved 45 minutes after the spent body of a Russian rocket booster was detected.
The U.S. Space Command tracks more than 7,000 objects of space debris, most of it junk: spent rockets, dead satellites and fragments from exploded boosters. Even tiny objects can do major damage upon impact, given the average orbiting speed of 17,500 mph.
