Japan To Clean Space By Using Magnets On Junk Through Unmanned Cargo

Earth gets its junk from people and other creatures that live in it. And although the universe does not have many people in it besides those in the space station and occasional visits from some landing missions, space still gets its fair share of junk. However, Japan has taken the challenge of cleaning out and removing these "space junk" by pulling them using magnets.

On Friday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has launched its H-IIB rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center to the International Space Station, reports The Telegraph. The rocket served as a port for the H-II Transfer Vehicle 6 (HTV-6) an unmanned cargo ship that carries the Kounotori 6 "Stork" Capsule. This capsule is a half-mile long magnetic tether that is supposed to absorb space junk caused by the Earth's orbit.

According to Space.com report, the HTV-6 contains about 4.5 tons of water, science equipment, spare parts, and other much-needed supplies for the astronauts in their orbiting laboratory. In a statement by NASA, other materials were included in the list of things brought by this Japanese uncrewed cargo to space. Some of which were lithium-ion batteries and adapter plates that the astronauts are about to use in their outside-station walks, also tagged as "spacewalks," in January.

Upon reaching the International Space Station, the HTV-6 will be attached on the space lab for at least 5 weeks before it will be burnt up. The burning of the rocket, however, will not be put to waste since it will be used to gather up space junk. As stated earlier, the vehicle carries with it a magnetic tether that would gather up these junk and after a few weeks of cleaning up what it could from among the more than 100 million of space debris left in space, it would be set to fire in space.

This disposable space capsule is one of the 3 capsules that are disposed of in space after they are used. The other 2 are the Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft and the other one is the Progress freighter from Russia. The only space capsule launched that will be sent back to Earth whole is the SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

And since there have been a series of misfortunes for the re-supply capsules for the ISS in the past, Japan's HTV-6 is, by far, the most successful. Japan's HTV series has a good historical record of launching their capsules to the ISS in good condition. The HTV-6 is expected to get to the ISS on Tuesday, December 13th.