Astronauts load giant trash can on shuttle

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A giant container filled with the belongings and trash of the departing international space station crew was placed back aboard space shuttle Endeavour on Friday for the trip home.

Endeavour is scheduled to undock from the space station today, ending an eight-day visit. Before the shuttle leaves, though, it may have to steer the orbiting complex out of the way of a piece of space junk.

NASA was monitoring a chunk of an old Russian rocket that looked as though it might come uncomfortably close to the space station Sunday -- within one-third of a mile. Endeavour's pilots were informed they may have to fire the shuttle thrusters Saturday morning to move the station out of harm's way.

Mission Control said the extra chore could delay Endeavour's undocking, but not by much.

The astronauts loaded more than 2 tons of dirty laundry, empty food trays, packing foam and used equipment into the Italian-built cargo carrier, named Raffaello. Then they used Endeavour's robot arm to remove the carrier from the station and return it to the shuttle payload bay.

Raffaello -- an aluminum cylinder 21 feet long and 15 feet in diameter -- contained supplies for the new space station crew when it rocketed into orbit aboard Endeavour on Dec. 5. It was attached to the station three days later.