Cape Canaveral, Fla. – A spacewalking astronaut did some massive housecleaning at the international space station Monday, tossing out a camera mounting and an ammonia tank weighing more than half a ton.
The outdated equipment was no longer needed and joined more than 9,000 pieces of orbital debris already being tracked from Earth.
“I’ll be sending my bill in the mail for trash disposal,” Clayton Anderson joked to Mission Control.
Anderson hurled the 1,400- pound, refrigerator-size ammonia tank away from the station with a single strong shove. His first toss was a 200-pound camera mounting.
Mission Control praised the tank throw as being “right down the middle.”
For each celestial toss, Anderson leaned back on the end of the space station’s 58-foot robot arm, as far from the space station as possible. He rocked forward and shouted “Jettison!” as he shoved the 4-foot camera mounting into space. He repeated the moves an hour later with the bulkier ammonia tank.
The tank had been launched in 2001 to provide spare coolant in case of a leak at the orbiting complex. The surplus ammonia was never needed, and the tank itself had exceeded its life expectancy.
NASA normally tries to avoid adding to the orbiting junkyard, but officials felt they had no choice in this case.
The equipment had to be removed, and because of a looming 2010 deadline for ending all shuttle flights, NASA does not have room on its remaining missions to return the tank to Earth.
Flight controllers expect the ammonia tank to circle Earth for 10 or 11 months before re-entering the atmosphere and burning up.
There should be no danger of a collision between the free- floating tank and the space station before that happens, officials said.
Small chunks are likely to survive next year’s fall through the atmosphere. NASA officials hope those pieces will hit the ocean.
The smaller camera mounting should burn up entirely.
