ISS Ditches 2.9-Ton Pallet of Batteries, Creating Its Most Massive Piece of Space Trash
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The external pallet packed with old nickel-hydrogen batteries, photographed shortly after being released by the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The object was orbiting 265 miles (427 km) above Chile when this photo was taken from the ISS.
Image: NASA
Weighing 2.9 tons and traveling 4.8 miles per second, this heap of old batteries is now the heaviest single piece of garbage to be jettisoned from the International Space Station.
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The pallet is packed with nickel-hydrogen batteries, and it will stay in low Earth orbit for the next two to four years “before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere,” according to a NASA statement. SpaceFlightNow reports that the pallet is the “most massive object ever jettisoned from the orbiting outpost.”
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