Garbage-Filled Spaceship to Fall to Earth Tuesday
Unmanned craft will become fireball over remote Pacific.
The European Space Agency launched the unmanned craft, called the Johannes Kepler automated transport vehicle (ATV), in February to deliver several tons of cargo to the International Space Station, including food, supplies, fuel, and oxygen.
The glorified space freighter isn't designed to safely return to Earth, so during the past four months space fliers on the ISS have crammed the 450-million-euro (640-million-dollar) canister with 1.3 tons of junk.
"They pretty much filled it to the brim, mostly with packing material from inside modules recently delivered to the space station," said Kelly Humphries, a NASA spokesperson at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Other garbage inside the ATV includes dirty clothes, food containers, broken equipment, and pretty much anything else the
