Japan launched a cargo ship on Dec 9, 2016 for ISS or International Space Station carrying a space junk collector designed with the help of a fishnet company.
Cargo ship is also carrying other materials for ISS.
The capsule called Kounotori, or white stork contains nearly 5 tons of food, water and other supplies, including six new lithium-ion batteries for the ISS solar power system.
Astronauts will conduct spacewalks next month to replace the old nickel-hydrogen batteries that store energy generated by the station's big solar panels.
This is Japan's sixth space capsule to the 250-mile-high outpost, currently home to Pesquet, two Americans and three Russians. It
launched from Tanegashima Space Centre in southern Japan.
Space Junk Collector- Scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are experimenting with a tether to pull space junk.
- Length of tether- 2300 feet
- First capsule launched: Sputnik (1957)
- 100 million pieces in the orbit currently.
- 'Kounotori', or 'stork', is assembled at Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima island.
- Space junk collector is made of electrodynamic tether from thin wires of stainless steel and aluminium.
- The electricity generated by the tether as it swings through the Earth's magnetic field is expected to have a slowing effect on the space junk.
- JAXA worked on the project with Japanese fishnet manufacturer Nitto Seimo.
