The new garbage disposal system uses an airlock called Bishop.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID,JAKARTA — Astronaut at Station Outer space International (ISS) must take out the trash. Traditionally, garbage from space station has been loaded onto a cargo spacecraft carrying supplies to the station and remains anchored there.
Then the cargo ship is released to burn in the atmosphere, with rubbish inside it. But now, the station has a new method of disposing of trash—by shooting it out of the airlock.
Reported from Digital TrendsSunday (10/7/2022), a new garbage disposal system uses an airlock called Bishop, part of a commercial module that was added to the station in 2020. The company Nanoracks that built the module, together with Thales Alenia Space, and Boeing, oversees the disposal of the waste. from airlock for the first time last weekend, on Saturday (2/7/2022).
The debris that comes out of the airlock will burn in the atmosphere, so it doesn’t add to the space debris problem. Garbage is placed in special trash containers that can hold up to 600 pounds (approximately 272.155 kg) of trash, and is airlocked. The tests carried out last week were captured on video footage and shared by Nanoracks.
The containers were loaded by Jessica Watkins of the American Space Agency (NASA) and Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA), and Kjell Lindgren and Bob Hines of NASA helped close the hatch and reduce airlock pressure.
The hope is that this garbage disposal method will be more sustainable, as well as more efficient than the current system because astronauts won’t have to hang their trash until the cargo ship is scheduled to be deorbited. Instead, they can throw away trash such as foam packaging materials, dirty clothes, or cleaning products when they’re ready.
“Garbage collection in space has been a long-standing, yet not publicly discussed, challenge aboard the ISS,” Cooper Read, Bishop Airlock program manager at Nanoracks, said in a statement. “Four astronauts can produce up to 2,500 kg of trash per year, or about two cans of trash per year, or about two cans of garbage per week. As we enter a time with more people living and working in space, this is an important function as is everyone at home,” he said.
Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/space/iss-trash-disposal-nanoracks/
