Japanese cargo ship launched to the space station

A Japanese refueling robot was launched to the International Space Station (ISS), initiating a five-day orbital pursuit.

HTV-7 cargo – which contains more than 5 tonnes (4.5 metric tonnes) of scientific equipment, food, fuel and other supplies – took off at the top of an H-II rocket at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan (22nd September) at 13:52 EDT (1752 GMT, 2:52 am, 23 September, Japan time).

If all goes as planned, HTV-7 will arrive at the lab in orbit early Thursday morning (27 September), said NASA officials.

HTV-7 was originally scheduled to take flight on September 10th, but this take-off was canceled because it was expected that the Typhoon Mangkhut would lead a terrible weather to Guam, where is located a major tracking station of the Japanese Agency of Japan. 39, aerospace exploration. The bad weather around Tanegashima and a problem with the cargo rocket have helped to delay takeoff until today.

"HTV" means "H-II transfer vehicle". The freighter is also known as Kounotori, which means "white stork" in Japanese.

As its name indicates, HTV-7 is Kounotori's seventh mission. The first of these cargo vehicles was launched in September 2009 and the last previous mission, HTV-6, was launched in December 2016.

The HTV is one of four robotic spacecraft that serves the ISS. The other three are the Russian cargo Progress, SpaceX Dragon capsule and Northrop Grumman's Cygnus vehicle. (The Automated Transfer Vehicle in Europe, or ATV, performed five ISS freight missions between 2008 and 2015, but no longer travels.)

Like Progress and Cygnus, the HTV is designed to burn in the Earth's atmosphere when its orbit time is up. Dragon, on the other hand, is reusable; he survives the fall and falls gently into the ocean under parachutes. Indeed, SpaceX has pushed back the Dragons used in four ISS cargo missions to date.

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