Lift-off! Japan launches unmanned cargo ship to space station

A Japanese cargo ship was successfully launched on Tuesday, September 24 on the International Space Station, taking off two weeks late due to a fire on the launch pad during its first attempt at takeoff.

The non-looted Transport vehicle H-II-8 (HTV-8) flew into space at 12:05 EDT Tuesday (15:55 GMT or 01:05 on September 25 in Japan). The cargo has stolen more than 4 tons of supplies, as well as batteries and a prototype laser communication system, the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.

The launch was originally scheduled for September 10, but officials cleaned it up after a fire on the launch pad a few hours before the launch. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), main contractor of the Japanese company Rocket H-IIB, subsequently determined that the fire had probably occurred due to the static electricity supplied to the oxygen, according to Spaceflight Now.

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MHI said in a statement that the unusually low Tanegashima winds during the countdown were not helping, as the oxygen fumes were more concentrated than usual on the launch pad as they had not been blown. "We took corrective action and confirmed the normal operation of the rocket and the installation," MHI added, without specifying the said measures.

On the day of the clean-up, NASA quickly issued a statement reassuring the public that the Space Station crew was still well-supplied despite the delay. In fact, three more people are probably on their way to the space station tomorrow (25 September). This Shipment 61 crew includes veteran Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, NASA rookie astronaut Jessica Meir and Hazza Al Mansouri of the United Arab Emirates. Al Mansouri is the first emirati astronaut never fly in space.

HTV is expected to arrive Saturday, September 28 – well after docking the crew of Expedition 61. The cargo ship will dock with the Harmony module of the ISS. The astronauts will use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to capture the Japanese tanker. The astronauts will unpack the supplies, while the robots will recover the batteries for future exit work in the space.

NASA is planning five spacewalks in October to recover the new lithium-ion batteries and replace them with aging nickel-hydrogen batteries that power the P6 beam segment of the space station, Spaceflight said. Now. The 21-year-old space station is in the midst of several battery replacements to maintain the residential quarters of the space station and the experiments powered for commercial crews – and beyond.

Pictures: The Japanese robotic fleet of space cargo ships

Meanwhile, Sony's laser communications terminal will be deployed to test future communications between satellites or ground stations, using high-speed laser communications, according to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA. (Today, spacecraft generally rely on radio, which has a more limited bandwidth for sending information).

Since 2016, JAXA said in a statement, Sony and the space agency are testing long-distance laser communications on the ground. The demonstration on the space station will involve the attachment of the Sony system to a small experimental platform exposed in space, connected to the Japanese module Kibo.

"We are expecting a lot of this technology," said ISS astronaut Koichi Wakata, now vice president of JAXA. "This technology (…) will probably be widely used not only in the telecommunications sector but in the future as a means of communication in the field of exploration, more specifically, it can be used as a means of of communication between the Earth and the International Space Station, the moon and Mars. "

Aside from this fire, Japan has enjoyed unparalleled success in launching its HTV vehicles, which typically fly in space every year or every two years. The last HTV before this one was sent in September 2018.

NASA will webcast the arrival of HTV-8 at the space station Saturday from 5:45 am EDT (09:45 GMT). The capture of a robotic arm is scheduled for 7:15 am EDT (11:15 GMT). The NASA webcast will resume Saturday at 9:30 am (EDT) (1:30 pm GMT) to cover the HTV-8 attachment to the Harmony module.

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