The piece of orbital junk closed in on the International Space Station at 29,000 mph. Six crew members evacuated to two Soyuz space capsules that would be their lifeboats if the debris made contact. The astronauts had no tools designed to find and repair significant damage and had only one option: Undock, and abandon the $100 billion Earth-orbiting laboratory. At 8:08 a.m. on June 28, 2011, the object and the station flew past each other-a harrowing 1,100 feet apart at closest approach.
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