The HTV-6 spacecraft had an extra mission after delivering cargo to the International Space Station, but it didn't work:
After departing from the space station on Jan. 27, HTV-6 spent a week orbiting the Earth 12 miles (19 kilometers) below and 23 miles (37 km) ahead of the ISS to keep a safe distance while testing out a new technology for removing space junk, or orbital debris, from Earth's orbit.
The Kounotori Integrated Tether Experiment (KITE) flunked its first orbital test when a glitch prevented it from properly deploying a 700-meter-long (2,300 feet) electrodynamic tether made to grab pieces of space junk, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) reported Tuesday (Jan. 31).
JAXA's space-junk-removing tether is designed to latch on to a piece of orbiting debris before pulling it down into Earth's atmosphere for a fiery disposal. The agency continued to troubleshoot and attempt to deploy the tether through Saturday (Feb. 4), but alas, the Japanese experiment burned up in the atmosphere without a space-junk tether success.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2017, @10:27PM
...so the next mission would have some junk to grab.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday February 08 2017, @10:57PM
Only orange clowns grab someone's junk without consent.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09 2017, @12:22AM
It would be their own junk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09 2017, @05:36AM
Good Lord, Danny. Reminds me of when I had to quit a Ham Radio mail list because some old fart wouldn't shut up about Obama. Reddit is only a click away, man- Political bitching goes over well on their tech forums.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 09 2017, @02:24PM
It's not bitching. It's short and concise. It doesn't expressly name anyone as the butt of the joke, that is only inferred by the reader due to pattern recognition occurring in the reader's own mind. People laugh because they make the inference. If you look at my posting history, you see that I seem to get plenty of Funny's. It would not be funny on its own without being in the context of what it is a reply to. Constructing the joke on the fly is the result of decades of practice after years of studying rec.humor and rec.humor.funny.
More importantly, it is actually not a joking matter. Not at all. People of all political views should be appalled about the subject matter of the joke. And that, is not political at all. I would say it is only political for people who think that such behavior is acceptable by someone who occupies or may one day occupy a high office of political power. No matter what party.
And I would point out this, I achieved the opposite of what the editors thought was the easy thing to do.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170102/00210536381/techdirt-2016-stats.shtml#c209 [techdirt.com]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11 2017, @07:17PM
DannyB is very big in Russia.