New York, June 29: Astronauts on the International Space Station took refuge in emergency escape pods Tuesday morning, during a close call with potentially dangerous space debris.

According to the Russian Mission Control, the six-member crew huddled into a pair of Soyuz spacecraft docked at the station for nearly half an hour as the astro-junk sped by, reports the New York Daily News.

The ISS often faces close encounters with debris, and engineers normally adjust the station''s orbit to reduce the probability of impact.

"We didn''t get enough advanced notice to plan a debris avoidance maneuver," NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries told SPACE. com.

The space debris passed within 850 feet of the ISS, but ultimately never struck it. The crew was eventually given the all clear.

It is unclear what kind of space junk threatened the space station.

The last time the astronauts were forced to seek shelter in the escape crafts was in 2009. (ANI)