On January 27, 2017, the Japanese "HTV Kounotori-6” unmanned supply spacecraft departed the International Space Station. First HTV-6 was disengaged with the space station's robotic arm from a docking port on the Harmony module. At 15:46 UTC the spacecraft was released by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet. The HTV’s mission is not over after its departure from the space station. The "HTV Kounotori-6” spacecraft will stay in orbit until February 5, 2017 conducting an experiment that could lay the foundation for a mechanism to remove space junk from orbit.