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Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has successfully launched one of its H-IIB rockets, carrying a payload of supplies, experimental equipment and new replacement batteries to help power the International Space Station. The rocket, commissioned by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, took off from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center at its scheduled instant launch window of 12:05 pm EST (1:05 am EST). month.
This is the eighth launch of the H-IIB and its H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV). This is the penultimate mission planned for the H-IIB before the withdrawal of this series of MHI rockets. It is about to be replaced by the larger and cheaper H3, which MHI hopes to fly for the first time next year.
The HTV-8 (or "Kounotori-8") mission will deliver a cargo to the ISS, distributed in a pressurized and unpressurized cargo compartment of the unmanned HTV spacecraft, which will be moored to the ISS to be discharged. Onboard experiments include an experiment that will help scientists to study the behavior of different regoliths (field materials from extraterrestrial bodies, including the Moon and Mars) in weightless environments; an upgrade of the experimental cell biology facility on the ISS; and a new small satellite that will be used to study optical communication in the space.
A new set of six lithium-ion batteries is also planned to replace the station's nickel-hydrogen batteries, which will involve a number of spacewalks and the use of robotic handling devices from the station to be installed more late this year. Nickel-hydrogen batteries are widely used in satellites and spacecraft, but lithium-ion has some advantages in terms of recharge and discharge speeds and memory, although they are not as durable as the existing variety . However, the ISS is already operating beyond its useful life and NASA hopes that it will eventually be replaced by a commercial space station. So it's probably not a problem.
The HTV spacecraft will continue to move towards the ISS where it will be connected to the station's Harmony module in just a few days, where it should spend about a month, as its cargo is unloaded by ISS astronauts.
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