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Discovery’s crew ejected six metal balls from the shuttle Wednesday to give space debris experts better methods of tracking thousands of small items whizzing around the Earth. The spheres, ranging from 2 to 6 inches in diameter, were sprung one at a time from a canister in the rear of the shuttle cargo bay for a test of ground radar stations in Massachusetts and Florida. Debris trackers hoped to follow the spheres as they shot out of Discovery and orbited Earth; the balls will incinerate on contact with the atmosphere in a few months. Discovery, launched Feb. 3, is scheduled to land Friday in Florida.
