{"id":12958,"date":"2019-09-09T17:39:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T09:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/japan-set-to-launch-space-station-resupply-mission\/"},"modified":"2019-09-09T17:39:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T09:39:05","slug":"japan-set-to-launch-space-station-resupply-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/japan-set-to-launch-space-station-resupply-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan set to launch space station resupply mission"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Japan\u2019s eighth HTV supply ship is set for launch Tuesday (U.S. time) from the Tanegashima Space Center. Credit: JAXA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Japanese HTV cargo freighter is set for launch Tuesday (U.S. time) aboard a powerful H-2B rocket, ferrying six new lithium-ion batteries, a Sony-developed laser communications terminal, fresh water and other equipment to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

The unpiloted cargo ship is set for liftoff at 2133:29 GMT (5:33:29 p.m. EDT) Tuesday from the Tanegashima Space Center, a spaceport carved from rocky outcrops overlooking the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

A Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-2B rocket will haul the HTV supply ship, also known as Kounotori 8, into orbit on a 15-minute flight heading southeast over the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Liftoff is set for 6:33 a.m. Japan Standard Time on Wednesday, roughly the moment Earth\u2019s rotation brings the Tanegashima launch complex under the space station\u2019s orbital plane.<\/p>\n

The mission will be the eighth cargo flight to the space station by a Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle since 2009.<\/p>\n

The 186-foot-tall (56.6-meter) H-2B rocket is set to roll out Tuesday to Launch Pad No. 2 at Tanegashima, where launch crews will connect the vehicle\u2019s mobile transporter to ground electrical and fluid supplies. Super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which will power both stages of the H-2B launcher, will begin flowing into the rocket in the hours before liftoff.<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s two first stage LE-7A main engines will ignite in the final seconds of the countdown, followed by ignition of four strap-on solid rocket boosters to propel the launcher off the pad with 2.5 million pounds of thrust.<\/p>\n

The H-2B\u2019s guidance computer will turn the rocket toward the southeast to align with the space station\u2019s orbital plane, and the rocket\u2019s four strap-on boosters will burn out and jettison around two minutes after liftoff. The H-2B\u2019s nose fairing, which will shield the HTV supply ship in the early phases of the mission, will separate at around T+plus 3 minutes, 40 seconds.<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s first stage engines will shut down just shy of the six-minute mark on the mission, followed be stage separation seconds later. A  single LE-5B engine on the second stage will ignite and ramp up to more than 30,000 pounds of thrust for a burn set to last more than eight minutes.<\/p>\n

The second stage engine will accelerate the HTV supply ship into a preliminary orbit ranging nearly 200 miles above Earth. Deployment of the the HTV cargo craft is planned approximately 15 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n

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Japan\u2019s eighth HTV cargo freighter, inside the H-2B rocket\u2019s payload fairing, is seen during transport at the Tanegashima Space Center in preparation for launch. Credit: JAXA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An on-target launch will set up the Kounotori 8 spacecraft for a four-day pursuit of the space station.<\/p>\n

Packed with some 8,326 pounds (3,777 kilograms) of equipment, experiments and crew provisions, the Kounotori 8 spacecraft will approach the space station in autopilot mode Saturday. The space station crew will use the lab\u2019s Canadian-built robotic arm to capture the HTV supply ship around 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) Saturday, then bring the spacecraft to a berthing port on the station\u2019s Harmony module.<\/p>\n

The six-person crew inside the station will get to work unpacking 5,313 pounds (2,410 kilograms) of cargo inside the HTV\u2019s pressurized logistics carrier. Meanwhile, robots outside the station will extract a pallet from the HTV\u2019s unpressurized cargo bay containing six lithium-ion batteries to upgrade the space station\u2019s power system.<\/p>\n

Astronauts Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan on the space station will conduct at least two spacewalks \u2014 the first is set for later this month \u2014 to begin installing the fresh batteries, which will replace aging and less-capable nickel-hydrogen batteries on the P6 solar array module on the far port side of the station\u2019s truss backbone.<\/p>\n

The Kounotori 8 mission will deliver the third set of six lithium-ion batteries to upgrade the space station\u2019s four huge U.S.-built external power modules, each of which features solar array wings that span 240 feet (73 meters) tip-to-tip. The sixth HTV mission in 2016 carried the first set of new batteries to the station, followed by a second batch last year on the Kounotori 7 resupply mission.<\/p>\n

A final set of six batteries will launch on the ninth HTV flight next year.<\/p>\n

Each solar array section powers two electrical channels with 12 charging nickel-hydrogen batteries, and NASA is replacing the old batteries in power truss section with six lighter, more efficient lithium-ion batteries.<\/p>\n

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Diagram of the H-2 Transfer Vehicle. Credit: JAXA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

JAXA uses the HTV missions as part of its contribution to the space station program. Nicknamed Kounotori, which means \u201cwhite stork\u201d in Japanese, the cargo freighter measures about 33 feet (10 meters) long and about 14 feet (4.4 meters) in diameter.<\/p>\n

The Kounotori 8 mission is also carrying food, fresh drinking water, a high-pressure gas tank to recharge the space station\u2019s internal atmosphere with oxygen and nitrogen, and spacewalking tools.<\/p>\n

The HTV will also deliver experiments to the space station.<\/p>\n

One of the experiments will demonstrate a high-speed satellite laser communications system developed by JAXA and Sony Computer Science Laboratories. The technology demonstrator will test a laser link with a ground station, which can accommodate higher-bandwidth communications than radio systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis technology, which employs a laser for in-orbit mass-data communication, will likely be widely used not only in the telecommunications industry, but in the future as a means of communication in the field of exploration,\u201d said Koichi Wakata, a JAXA vice president, in a statement. \u201cSpecifically, it can be used as a means of communication between the Earth and the International Space Station, the moon, and Mars. There is a wide range of potential applications, such as communication with the moon rovers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Small Optical Link for International Space Station, or SOLISS, experiment will be mounted on an experiment platform outside the space station\u2019s Japanese Kibo laboratory module.<\/p>\n

\u201cSony CSL is taking advantage of the in-orbit demonstrations to complete our long-distance laser communication system,\u201d said Hiroaki Kitano, president of Sony CSL. \u201cIt will be the first step for Sony to build upon the results of these demonstrations and put it into practical use in society as we commercialize it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity to use Kibo for the in-orbit demonstrations makes it possible to greatly advance the research and development of the optical communication system, much more quickly than if we had launched a small satellite for the same purpose on our own,\u201d Kitano said. \u201cThe SOLISS system is built using consumer components. After the demonstrations, we will retrieve the SOLISS unit and perform follow-up analyses, which we expect will further accelerate our commercialization process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s Hourglass experiment is also set for launch on the eighth HTV mission to help scientists investigate the behavior of soil and rock particles under low gravity, simulating the conditions future probes might encounter on a small planet or asteroid.<\/p>\n

New hardware for a cellular biology experiment rack will also fly to the space station on the Kounotori 8 spacecraft, expanding the station\u2019s capabilities for biological research.<\/p>\n

Three CubeSats are also set to ride to the station inside the Kounotori 8 spacecraft. Once they arrive at the station, astronauts will transfer them to the Japanese Kibo module, where they will install them into a deployer for release into orbit through an airlock.<\/p>\n

The 2-pound (1-kilogram) NARSSCube 1 nanosatellite was developed by Egypt\u2019s National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Science in partnership with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan. It carries a low-resolution imaging camera.<\/p>\n

The AQT-D CubeSat, which weighs 8.1 pounds (3.7 kilograms) and is about the size of a shoebox, will demonstrate a water-based satellite propulsion system. The AQT-D mission is led by the University of Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Rwanda\u2019s first satellite, named RWASAT 1, will also launch Tuesday. Officials say the satellite will aid agricultural and environmental monitoring.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan\u2019s eighth HTV supply ship is set for launch Tuesday (U.S. time) from the Tanegashima Space Center. Credit: JAXA A Japanese HTV cargo freighter is set for launch Tuesday (U.S. time) aboard a powerful H-2B rocket, ferrying six new lithium-ion batteries, a Sony-developed laser communications terminal, fresh water and other equipment to the International Space […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2217,2517,1839,2462,717,1602,377,877],"class_list":["post-12958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-h-2b","tag-h-2b-f8","tag-htv","tag-htv-8","tag-international-space-station","tag-iss-cargo","tag-japan","tag-jaxa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}