Japan's unmanned experimental probe fails to get rid of space debris

Illustrator's perception of space debris. (Representational image)

New Delhi: On December 9, 2016, Japan sent H-II Transfer Vehicle Kounotori 6 (HTV6) into space to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). The same cargo ship was also supposed to complete another mission during its return journey – clean up space debris.

While the cargo ship's first mission went of smoothly, the second one wasn't very successful. The experimental Japanese probe failed in its mission to clear space junk from the Earths orbit.

The space cargo ship left the ISS on January 28 and re-entered the atmosphere on Monday, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has confirmed.

Following undocking, the scientists expected to eliminate space debris on low-earth orbits with the Kounotori Integrated Tether Experiments (KITE), an on-orbit demonstration of electrodynamic tether on HTV.

The hope was that the clutter would eventually enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up harmlessly before it had a chance to crash into the planet, The Guardian reported.

But problems in the 700-metre tether developed soon after undocking and technicians could not fix the problems before the space cargo ship's re-entry.

"We believe the tether did not get released," leading researcher Koichi Inoue was quoted as saying.

"It is certainly disappointing that we ended the mission without completing one of the main objectives," Inoue added.

(With IANS inputs)