Astronauts scramble to safety as Russian satellite nearly HITS International Space Station 

Astronauts take emergency shelter after junk threatens space station A piece of space junk threatened to crash into the international space station, forcing the three astronauts to seek emergency shelter. For nearly an hour on Thursday, the American and two Russians hunkered down in their Soyuz capsule, which is docked to the 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 (3kms) away. “Happy there was no impact,” Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly said via Twitter. “Great coordination with international ground teams. Excellent training.” 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 Thursday; the crew was notified just 1½ hours in advance.