Article Posted on : - Jan 14, 2012

MOSCOW (AFP): The International Space Station was successfully moved into higher orbit Saturday to avoid a collision with space junk, said the Russian space agency's mission control centre.

"The manoeuvre was completed. The station's orbit was raised to a safe altitude," said a centre spokesman, as quoted by Russian news agencies.

The station's average altitude was raised by 1.5 kilometres to 391.4 kilometres, the same source said.

The centre had previously said that the remains of US satellite Iridium-33 were likely to collide with the ISS late Friday or early Saturday.

The US satellite in 2009 collided with disused Russian military satellite Cosmos-2251 at an altitude of 800 kilometres, leaving a cloud of space debris.