Japanese Rocket Fueled and Ready for Launch

Japan's Kounotori HTV-2 resupply ship
Japan’s Kounotori HTV-2 resupply ship is seen March 2011 in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

A Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) H-IIB rocket at the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan is fueled and ready for a launch of the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-6) at 8:26 a.m. EST. NASA Television is providing live coverage of the launch, which can be seen at https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv.

Loaded with more than 4.5 tons of supplies, water, spare parts and experiment hardware for the six-person station crew, the unpiloted cargo spacecraft, named “Kounotori” – the Japanese word for white stork – will set sail on a four-day flight to the station. Also aboard the resupply vehicle are six new lithium-ion batteries and adapter plates that will replace the nickel-hydrogen batteries currently used on the station to store electrical energy generated by the station’s solar arrays. These will be installed during a series of robotic operations and spacewalks between late December and mid-January.

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For more information on previous HTV missions from JAXA to the space station visit:


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3 thoughts on “Japanese Rocket Fueled and Ready for Launch”

  1. In the past I read that the international space station has six different docking stations for space vehicles. I know of only one such space vehicle the space shuttle. My question is what are the other five docking stations, and what type of space vehicles exist that could dock with the space station?

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