A tool dropped earlier this week by an astronaut came back to haunt the crew of the international space station on Wednesday.

Comm. James Wetherbee used the Discovery's thrusters to move the space station Alpha away from the path of the viselike tool dropped on Sunday by astronaut Jim Voss.

The crew moved quickly to dodge the space junk, which at its orbital speed of 28,160 kilometres per hour could have punctured the station's or the shuttle's hull, potentially depressurizing the spacecraft and killing the crew.

The shuttle Atlantis was nearly hit by space junk in February

Had the station not moved, the tool would have shot past the complex with just 61 metres to spare. NASA tries to keep a 40-kilometre long, 40-kilometre wide and 10-kilometre deep safety zone around Alpha and the space shuttle.

In February, space junk forced NASA to move Alpha and the space shuttle Atlantis to avoid a menacing piece of garbage that would have passed within 250 metres of the spacecraft.

U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs, Colo. is currently tracking 8,303 man-made objects the size of a softball or larger. While about 600 of these objects are functioning satellites, the remainder are considered space junk.

The dropped tool is one of over 8,000 objects orbiting the Earth

Including today's manoeuvre, this is the 14th time that NASA spacecraft have had to dodge space junk.