Japanese cargo ship leaves the space station. Next stop: Oubli.

A Japanese robotic freighter takes off from the International Space Station on Wednesday, November 7, for a weekend date with forgetting to close a successful replenishment mission.

The station's astronauts released the HTV-7 supply ship from the station using a robotic arm at 11:51 am EST (16:51 GMT), the two spacecraft having sailed 254 miles above the northern Pacific Ocean . The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the cargo ship bound for the station in late September to deliver more than 5 tons (4.5 tons) of fresh produce, scientific equipment and equipment. other supplies.

"The Expedition 57 team would like to thank the entire JAXA program and technical teams for the seamless design and execution of the HTV-7 replenishment mission," ordered the station's commander. control of the European Space Agency, after the success of the recovery. The freighter, he added, is an essential part of a truly international effort to support the world's only outpost in space. Gerst used the robotic arm to release HTV-7 with support from NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor. [Japan’s Huge HTV Space Truck Explained (Infographic)]

The JAXA HTV Freighters (abbreviation for H-2 Transfer Vehicles) are disposable spacecraft designed to carry tons of supplies to the space station and then intentionally flare and burn themselves in the air. Earth's atmosphere at the end of the mission. The spacecraft, also known as Kounotori (Japanese, "white stork"), is part of a fleet of robotic cargo ships from Japan, Russia, Europe and the United States. Who have supplied the station with supplies in the last 18 years.

HTV-7 has delivered essential supplies to the International. The crew of the Space Station, including six new batteries for the solar energy network of the laboratory in orbit. It also carried two tiny cubes for a space elevator experiment (deployed Oct. 6) and a small back-to-back capsule that, in a premiere in Japan, will attempt to send experiments back to Earth. If all goes well, the capsule will be deployed just before HTV-7 falls on Earth in the South Pacific on Saturday, November 10, NASA officials said.

[HT] The cone-shaped vehicle called HTV Small Return Capsule is 2.7 feet wide (0.8 meters), 2.1 feet high (0.6 meters) and weighs 397 pounds (180 kilograms) ).

"The capsule of restitution will be ejected of a lock after the burning of the desorbet", have said NASA officials statement. "The experimental capsule will perform a parachute-badisted water landing off the coast of Japan, where a JAXA ship will be preparing for its recovery."

Gerst wished the team behind the return capsule a good chance in his next technological test. It was he and his teammates from Expedition 57 who filled the capsule with his experimental cargo and secured it to the HTV-7 hatch. I wish all the success possible in the most interesting phase of the mission of the return capsule: the return and the descent.

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