Kounotori cargo refueling mission 7 en route to the ISS

The Kounotori 7 spacecraft is launched by Japanese rocket H-IIB. The takeoff took place at 17:52 GMT on 22 September 2018. Photo credit: JAXA

The seventh Japanese cargo supply mission to the International Space Station took off Saturday from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. This is the mission? Send over six tons of cargo, including supplies to the crew, new batteries and various experiments.

HTV-7, or Kounotori 7 (Kounotori means "white stork" in Japanese), was launched on an H-IIB rocket at 13:52. EDT 22 September (17:52 GMT / 14:52 local time, 23 September), 2018. The cargo ship is expected to arrive at the ISS on 27 September.

The flight was originally scheduled for one hour from 18:32. EDT September 10 (22:32 GMT / 7:32 am local time Sept. 11th) launch, but adverse weather conditions, including strong winds caused by a typhoon near Guam, forced the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) ) to launch hold and reprogram the takeoff. Guam hosts the main ground tracking station required to maintain communications between the flight controllers and the launcher.

HTV-7 at the second spacecraft assembly and test building located at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Photo credit: JAXA.

After another review of the time, the launch was postponed to 16:59. EDT 14 September (20:59 GMT / 5:59 local time, 15 September), but this time the flight was cleaned about two hours before the H-IIB engines were fired due to a problem with the rocket propulsion system . This required a postponement of about a week to allow the engineers time to identify and solve the problem.

The JAXA then set 21 September as the date of its launch, and when it appeared that all the obstacles to take-off had been removed, adverse weather conditions again forced the agency to delay the flight. . 24 hours.

Countdown and launch

Finally, the H-IIB was deployed on the launch pad approximately 15 hours before scheduled take-off. After several hours of inspections and refueling, the countdown has entered its terminal phase about an hour before ignition.

At around T-minus minutes, control of the mission was handed over to the computers and the launcher was turned on. Five seconds before takeoff, the first stage of the rocket ignited its two LE-7A engines. At T-less-zero, the A3 Solid Rocket Boosters Quartet (SRB) was born and the H-IIB began a short vertical climb powered by six engines.

After completing its vertical ascent, the rocket made a pitching and turning maneuver and headed south-east to align with the 51.6 degree orbital tilt of the aircraft. # 39; ISS.

The initial stage of the flight lasted almost two minutes and ended with the separation of the SRB. With the abandoned quartet, the H-IIB continued its mission with only the basic phase.

The separation of the payload fairing took place almost four minutes after the start of the flight and the base leg completed its work about six minutes of flight.

Then the second leg took control of the mission, lighting its only LE-5B engine to begin inserting the HTV-7 into its initial orbit some 300 kilometers above sea level. The deployment of the spacecraft occurred approximately 15 minutes after takeoff.

HTV-7 is currently catching up with the International Space Station. It will take approximately five days to reach the vicinity of the station where it should be captured at 7:54 am EDT (11:54 GMT) on 27 September by the 57.7-foot (17.6-meter) Canadarm2 robotic that will be operated by two astronauts from expedition 56, Drew Feustel and Serena Aunon-Chancellor of NASA.

The spacecraft should be installed on the port facing the Earth from the Harmony module of the station. It will remain docked at the ISS until mid-November 2018.

The exposed pallet with six lithium-ion batteries installed. Image credit: JAXA

Payload

HTV-7 was presented to the media on July 28, 2018 at a press conference at the Tanegashima Space Center. According to JAXA, the spacecraft is loaded with about 6.2 tons of supplies, fresh food, water, spare parts and experiments.

Developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the 2300-pound (10,500-kilogram) HTV-7 satellite is approximately 33 feet (10 meters) long and 14.4 feet (4.4 meters) in diameter. The vessel consists of two logistic carriers – the Pressurized Logistics Operator (PLC) and the Unpressurized Logistics Operator (ULC), which also includes the exposed pallet, as well as an avionics module and a propulsion module.

The ULC of HTV-7 is occupied by six new orbital replacement units (ORUs) consisting of new lithium-ion battery cells weighing about 1.9 tons. The ORUs must replace the current nickel-hydrogen batteries of the station. HTV ships are capable of delivering six ORUs at a time.

Two space outputs are planned to replace the old nickel-hydrogen batteries with the new lithium-ion units. They were originally scheduled for September 20-26, but due to the delay in HTV-7 arrival at the ISS, they were postponed. New dates for EVA are expected to be announced soon by NASA.

In addition to the essential supplies for astronauts aboard the station, the cargo of HTV-7 PLC (about 4.3 metric tons) includes two EXpedite, the treatment of space station racks experiences (EXPRESS), namely EXPRESS Rack 9B and 10B. They are versatile payload rack systems that store and support onboard research on the space station and allow simple and fast integration of multiple payloads.

For JAXA, an essential payload inside the automaton is the small HTV reentry capsule (HSRC). This cone-shaped container, measuring 0.61 meters by 0.82 meters (2 feet by 2.7 feet), is designed to demonstrate reentry technology and cargo recovery from the space station. Following the departure of the outpost cargo ship this fall, the CRSS is expected to separate from the spacecraft hatch for a parachute-assisted splash off the coast of Japan before being salvaged.

The HTV Small reentry capsule. Photo credit: JAXA

The controller also contains the ESA Life Support Rack (LSR), which includes equipment for testing an "effective life support system" that produces oxygen from water by electrolysis. Another payload is the Life Sciences glove box (LSG), which will be the second large-scale glove box for scientific experiments on the ISS and should be installed in the Kibo module.

Other payloads for the controller include the Loop Heat Pipe Radiator (LHPR) technology demonstration system, the JEM Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (JEMS), and three CubeSats named SPATIUM-I, RSP-00 and STARS-Me, jointly developed by universities. in Japan and Singapore.

On the list of HTV-7 transported experiments is a new sample holder for the electrostatic levitation oven (JAXA-ELF), a low temperature protein crystal growth experiment (JAXA LT PCG) and a study of the Effect of microgravity on bone marrow (MARROW).

The H-IIB rocket used for Saturday's launch is a two-stage rocket launcher derived from the H-II rocket of the 1990s. Being just a little higher than the two rockets of the H-II family at 57 meters, it uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to power its two LE-7A engines and its second LE-5B engine.

In addition, four solid fuel boosters are used during the first two minutes of flight. The rocket was designed to orbit the Kounotori spacecraft and has been used exclusively for this purpose since its first launch in 2009 with the HTV-1.

HTV-7 is Japan's fifth orbital mission in 2018. The next launch of the country is scheduled for October 29, 2018, when an H-IIA rocket will orbit several satellites, including CubeSats, for Japan and other countries. .

Video courtesy of Space Videos

Tagged: H-IIB HTV-7 International Space Station JAXA Kounotori 7 Stories Head Tanegashima Space Center Urgent

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Tomasz Nowakowski

Tomasz Nowakowski is the owner of Astro Watch, one of the first blogs on astronomy and science on the Internet. Nowakowski has contacted SpaceFlight Insider to have the two space-related websites collaborate. The generous offer of Nowakowski has been gratefully received by both organizations who are now working to better relay important developments in space exploration.