Anyone know why they didn’t just keep it around, surely having a few old batteries and a bit more shielding around the ISS might have come in handy?
Was it risky to keep them around or did the extra weight (even in a basically weightless environment) come at a cost to maintaining orbit?
The ISS has to regularly perform station keeping, i.e. it has to expand fuel to raise its continuously decaying orbit. Any additional weight would increase the fuel required for this.
