Video Transcript
When researchers are finished with lab equipment or other supplies, it’s a good time for tidying up around the office. But when your lab is orbiting some 250 miles above the Earth, it’s not as simple as just walking it to a dumpster. NASA Astronaut Woody Hoburg recently detailed how the International Space Station deals with that particular issue.
In a video posted on his Twitter account, Hoburg outlined how ISS personnel discarded “flight support equipment,” a large metal bracket that held the station’s newly installed solar arrays in place as they were launched into orbit. Operators back on Earth used a robotic arm to grab and jettison — or release— the FSE from its position on the ISS.
Rather than simply falling to the ground like an object on Earth, the jettisoned equipment continues in orbit. In the video, Hoburg raises his camera to show the FSE appearing to float just below the station’s position. He said it would continue orbiting, albeit gradually slower and lower, over the following “days and weeks” — later clarified to “the next couple of years” by editors — before ultimately descending to Earth. Getting rid of mass, Hoburg noted, is an important part of ISS operations because doing so makes it more efficient to boost its position in orbit and frees up grappling infrastructure for other tasks.
Hoburg, who led an MIT research group before becoming an astronaut, traveled to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in early March. He and the five other members of the Crew-6 launch are approaching the end of their scheduled six-month stay in orbit.
