It's like a scene straight from 2013's hit sci-fi thriller film "Gravity": Spacemen scrambling in outer space, trying to avoid the threat of an object speeding towards them.
This time, it's for real: Two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut living at the International Space Station (ISS) were forced to evacuate into an escape pod because of an approaching piece of debris from an old Russian weather satellite.
Earlier this week, mission control alerted the spacemen — Commander Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko of Russia and Scott Kelly of the US — that the space trash is headed their way.
With less than two hours to evacuate, the crew boarded the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station, which provides them a way to abandon ship and escape in case the space debris strikes the space station.
This was only the fourth time in history when the crew inside the International Space Station had to go inside the Soyuz spacecraft for protection.
Before hunkering down into the escape pod, the spacemen also took measures to protect the station, sealing off the separate modules to contain the damage should the space trash come in close contact.
By a stroke of luck, the old satellite debris whizzed past the International Space Station. After staying inside the Soyuz spacecraft for some time, the crew were given the all-clear message by mission control.
The crew then proceeded to reconfigure and normalise operations inside the space station.
"The crew of the International Space Station is resuming normal operations after getting an all clear from Mission Control following a close pass by space debris this morning," the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said in a statement following the incident.
"All station systems are operating normally and the crew will move out of the Soyuz spacecraft in which they stayed during the debris pass," the NASA statement further read.
Kelly even managed to tweet after the incident. "Happy there was no impact. Great coordination with international ground teams. Excellent training," the astronaut said.
