In mid-March, a general cleaning was scheduled for the International Space Station. On this day, a container weighing 2.9 tons with used nickel-hydrogen batteries was sent from the station to the surrounding space.
According to a NASA spokesman, the container “was removed from the space station at a safe distance and will continue to orbit around the Earth for four years, after which it will enter the dense layers of the atmosphere and burn up without causing harm.”
A different scheme for disposing of used batteries was originally planned. The replacement of old batteries with new lithium-ion batteries was to be carried out using the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) disposable spacecraft. After the completion of the operation of delivery and replacement of batteries, a container with used batteries was placed in each HTV, after which the spacecraft should be returned to Earth and burn with all its contents upon entry into the atmosphere, and not the burnt remnants should fall into the Pacific Ocean. But due to a violation of the schedule for removing used batteries from the station in 2018, one container with batteries was never loaded into the HTV apparatus. He had to be removed in this way.
Newspaper headline:
Space debris