Japan’s sixth HTV supply ship departed the International Space Station on Friday and headed for a destructive re-entry over the South Pacific with trash and disused batteries from the research lab, but engineers will first use the spacecraft for a pioneering experiment to investigate a new way to remove space junk from orbit.
Two spacewalking astronauts working outside the International Space Station Friday completed work to replace aging batteries in one of the lab’s eight main solar power circuits. A second spacewalk next week, along with additional work with the station’s robot arm, will upgrade a second power channel.
Working over the New Year holiday weekend, robot arm operators at the Johnson Space Center will begin a complex procedure to replace 12 aging batteries in the International Space Station’s solar power system with six state-of-the-art lithium-ion power packs, a multi-step process over the next two weeks that will require two spacewalks to complete.
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