A Huge Piece of International Space Station Will Be Tossed Into the Sky Next Month

Next month, a big module called Pirs will be jettisoned from the Russian half of the International Space Station and fall into Earth’s atmosphere. No need to worry about pieces of metal falling from the sky, though, as calculation suggests that the giant debris should have completely burned up before making it to the ground. Still, it will be the first ISS module to be completely decommissioned and discarded in space. On Wednesday, a pair of ISS residents, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov, went outside the orbital lab and performed a seven-hour spacewalk to prepare for Pirs’s release. More

(Source: 25544 - Jun 5)