A 2.9 - ton cargo pallet , once used for a critical battery upgrade mission on the International Space Station ( ISS ) , is now approaching the ending of its journeying and is expect to reenter the Earth ’s ambiance in the coming daylight .
The pallet , tossed from the ISS in March 2021 by the trusty Canadarm2 , is facing imminent demolition in Earth ’s atmosphere three years after serve its intent in a major battery replacement project on the station . According to Harvard - Smithsonian astronomer Jonathan McDowell , the pallet “ will not all burn up on reentry — about half a gross ton of fragments will in all likelihood hit the Earth ’s surface , ” McDowellnotedon X.
It ’s the end of the orbital road for theheaviest piece of ISS infinite trash , which has been gradually falling towards Earth like a fly getting sucked up in a kitchen drain . The expected reentry of the cargo palette into Earth ’s atmosphere is between March 8 at 7:30 a.m. ET and March 9 at 3:30 a.m. ET , according to McDowell . The exact location of reentry is not known .
The pallet packed with old nickel-hydrogen batteries, photographed shortly after being released by the Canadarm2 robotic arm.Photo: NASA
Japan ’s HTV9 cargo ship visited ISS in May - Aug 2020 . It allow behind , confiscate to ISS , a 2633 kg equipment palette carrying 9 toss out Station stamp battery . This pallet was heaved overboard by the Canadarm-2 on 2021 Mar 11 and is bear to make an uncontrolled reentry tomorrow.pic.twitter.com/TbepjTS2lZ
— Jonathan McDowell ( @planet4589)March 7 , 2024
The pallet “ was the largest object — mass - saucy — ever jettisoned from the International Space Station at 2.9 ton , more than twice the mass of the Early Ammonia Servicing System tank jettison by spacewalker Clay Anderson during the STS-118 mission in 2007 , ” NASA spokesperson Leah Cheshier tell apart Gizmodo in March 2021 . The pallet was about 265 nautical mile ( 427 kilometers ) above Earth ’s control surface when it was released .
The external pallet being released by Canadarm2.Photo: NASA
The pallet ’s journey started with a mission to upgrade the ISS ’s power organisation . In May 2020 , a Japanese cargo ship dock at the ISS , present the SUV - sized equipment pallet to assist astronauts in replacing the sure-enough nickel - hydrogen batteries with new , more efficient atomic number 3 - ion batteries . This raise was a part of a big endeavour , which concluded with a spacewalk on February 1 , 2021 , by astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover . This mission , involving four supply missions from the Japanese H - II Transfer Vehicle ( HTV ) cargo space vehicle , 13 different astronaut , and 14 spacewalks , saw the substitution of 48 nickel note - hydrogen battery with 24 lithium - ion batteries across six age . These bombardment store free energy collected by the station ’s solar arrays .
The uncontrolled disposal of the pallet , however , was not part of the original plan . It was made necessary by a disrupt spacewalking schedule following thefailed launch of a Soyuz rocket engine in 2018 , which forced NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin to make an parking brake landing place in the Kazakh steppe . This event led to a backlog in the disposal of such equipment . Normally , old batteries would be placed inside an HTV and jettison from the ISS to burn up on re - submission .
However , in tardy 2018 , an HTV departed without this battery pallet due to the rescheduled spacewalks . As the battery refilling mission go forward , and with no more HTVs of the old plan expected to get ( they are being replaced by the HTV - X consignment spacecraft ) , the determination was made to jettison the pallet independently .
Which bring us to the pending uncontrolled reentry . It marks the conclusion of this story — assuming the falling piece do n’t hurt anyone or damage any attribute — but it serves as a reminder of the challenges and complexness inherent in managing and adapting space missions .
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