Shuttle dodges clunk from Chinese junk

Nasa, confronted again with orbiting junk, ordered the astronauts aboard the linked space station and shuttle Discovery to move out of the path of a piece of debris.

Discovery’s pilots fired their ship’s thrusters to reorient the two spacecraft and avoid a small piece from a 10-year-old Chinese satellite rocket motor that had been due to pass uncomfortably close during today’s planned spacewalk.