---
title: "Cosmonauts Caught Littering Directly Into Space During Spacewalk"
description: "After completing a seven-hour spacewalk, two Russian cosmonauts intentionally left a bundle of discarded hardware drift away into empty space."
date: "2023-05-09"
modified: "2023-05-09"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/cosmonauts-littering-space-during-spacewalk"
categories:
  - "Off-World"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "cosmonauts"
  - "international space station"
  - "space junk"
  - "the digest"
---

# Cosmonauts Caught Littering Directly Into Space During Spacewalk

![After completing a seven-hour spacewalk, two Russian cosmonauts intentionally left a bundle of discarded hardware drift away into empty space.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cosmonauts-caught-littering-directly-into-space-during-spacewalk.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: NASA\</em\>*

## Take Out the Trash

After completing a seven-hour spacewalk to move an airlock from one part of the International Space Station to another, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin intentionally yeeted a sizeable bundle of discarded hardware drift away into space.

"Bye bye," said one of the cosmonauts after letting go of the bundle during a [livestream](<https://youtu.be/QyJlhsedQ8A>) of the spacewalk. "Just flies beautifully."

While that sound feel like the equivalent of throwing trash out a car window, experts say the bundle will harmlessly burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, the [*BBC* reports](<https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/65484898>) — effectively using the atmosphere as an enormous trash incinerator.

While it was an intentional act, [experts have warned](<https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14839475>) that errant pieces of astronaut equipment could add to our existing space junk problem.

https://youtu.be/QyJlhsedQ8A

## Drifting Off

It's not always intentional. For instance, NASA astronaut Ed White infamously [lost a spare glove](<https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14839475>) while venturing outside of the Gemini 4 spacecraft back in 1965. In 2017, astronauts Peggy Whitson and Shane Kimbrough [lost a bag](<https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/31/lost-in-space-debris-shield-bag-floats-away-from-astronauts-during-iss-spacewalk>) containing a debris shield during a spacewalk.

Still, burning up junk in the atmosphere has become a well-established convention for the space station. Crew members regularly [load their trash](<https://www.space.com/43272-cygnus-capsule-leaves-space-station-february-2019.html>) into a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to have it and the garbage inside of it burn up on re-entry.

Other manmade objects orbiting the planet, including SpaceX's broadband-beaming internet satellites, are also designed to burn up in the atmosphere at the end of their lifespan.

## Space Littering

Nonetheless, something about watching cosmonauts send a giant pack of discarded hardware spinning into the distance feels off.

After all, the Earth's orbit has become incredibly cluttered over the years as human space exploration efforts have increased.

The Department of Defense is tracking [more than 23,000 pieces](<https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html>) of debris larger than the size of a softball in the Earth's orbit. Experts estimate there are some 100 million pieces of debris roughly one millimeter in diameter littering the space around our planet.

While that's small, they can still do considerable damage. The ISS has had to make [several](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/iss-dodge-debris-satellite-weapon>) [maneuvers](<https://futurism.com/russia-dodge-debris-satellite>) over the years to dodge incoming space junk.

Whether the station will ever find itself in the ironic position of encountering errant hardware left behind by its own spacewalking astronauts, though, remains to be seen.

**More on space littering:** *[Two Large Chunks of Space Debris Just Almost Collided in an Epic Disaster](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/large-chunks-space-debris-almost-collided>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)