International Space Station Takes Out The Trash

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CAPE CANAVERAL (CBSMiami/AP) The International Space Station just put the trash out, so to speak, releasing its orbiting lab and leaving it with one less capsule on its hands.

A commercial cargo ship ended its five-week visit Tuesday morning. NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins used the space stations big robot arm to release the capsule, called Cygnus, as the orbiting lab sailed 260 miles above the South Atlantic.

Cygnus is filled with garbage and will burn up Wednesday when it plunges through the atmosphere, over the Pacific.

Orbital Sciences Corp. launched the capsule last month from Virginia under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. The Cygnus delivered 3,000 pounds of goods, including belated Christmas gifts for the six-man crew and hundreds of ants for a student experiment.

The ants are still aboard the space station. Theyll return to Earth aboard another companys cargo ship, the SpaceX Dragon.

SpaceX or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., based in Southern California will launch its next Dragon from Cape Canaveral on March 16 with a fresh load of supplies.

NASA is paying Orbital Sciences and SpaceX to keep the space station stocked. Russia, Japan and Europe also take turns making deliveries.

The SpaceX Dragon is the only craft capable of safely returning a pile of items, now that NASAs space shuttles are retired. The Russian Soyuz crew capsule has just enough room for three astronauts and a few odds and ends.

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International Space Station Takes Out The Trash