A Japanese spacecraft immolated according to plan while re-entering Earth's atmosphere Sunday. The space junk it was supposed to grab along the way? Not so much.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency sent the spacecraft to take supplies to the International Space Station late last year. After that routine delivery, the craft was then directed to launch a new experiment to clean up pieces of old spacecraft still orbiting the Earth. After dropping off the goods and being refilled with ISS trash, the spacecraft was to deploy a 2,300-foot-long tether to lasso space junk and drag it back to Earth. Both the craft and the space junk would, in theory, incinerate when they re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.
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Millions of pieces of space junk still orbit the Earth, NASA said, posing a danger to future missions and the ISS. It's unclear whether the Japanese researchers will try a similar method in the future.
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