The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Sunday ordered the astronauts aboard the International Space Station and space shuttle Discovery to move out of the way of a 4-inch (10-centimeter) piece of space junk.

　　According to the space agency, Discovery's pilots fired their ship's thrusters to avoid the junk, which is likely to uncomfortably approach the station Monday.

　　NASA said keeping the spacecraft in this position for about three hours is enough to get the space station and Discovery out of the junk.

　　It's the third time in March that the space station was confronting a space junk. On March 12, Astronauts aboard the space station took emergent refuge in Russia's Soyuz capsule in case of a collision with a flying debris cloud. And last week, the space station almost had to dodge yet another piece of junk.

　　Astronauts Steven Swanson and Joseph Acaba finished the second of three planned spacewalks Saturday to make preparation for NASA's future space shuttle mission and the debut flight of a Japanese cargo ship. During the space walk, they loosened connections on batteries on the external Port 6 truss, ready for their replacement on a later mission in June.