Florida ? NASA gave the all-clear to the international space station Monday, telling its astronauts they would not need to steer away from an orbiting piece of satellite junk.

Experts had been keeping close tabs on the debris all day, at one point believing it might pass within a half-mile of the space station today, just ahead of the shuttle Discovery’s arrival.

But as they studied the path of the small debris from an old busted-up Soviet satellite, engineers ascertained it would remain at a safe distance.

A maneuver by the space station would have forced Discovery, which is delivering one last set of solar wings, to adjust its course for docking late this afternoon.