The Japanese H-II Transport Vehicle-6 (HTV-6)
cargo vehicle is seen grappled by the International Space Station's robotic
arm after arrival on Dec. 13, 2016. Six weeks after delivering more than 4.5
tons of supplies and experiments to the space station, the unpiloted
Japanese cargo spacecraft is scheduled to depart the station Friday, Jan. 27.
Credits: NASA
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Six weeks after delivering more than 4.5 tons of supplies and
experiments to the International Space Station, an unpiloted Japanese cargo
spacecraft is scheduled to depart the station Friday, Jan. 27. Live coverage of
the departure will begin at 10 a.m. EST on NASA Television and the agency’s
website.
Ground controllers will use the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to
unberth the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA’s) H-II Transport
Vehicle-6 (HTV-6) several hours before its release. Space station Flight
Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency), with back-up support
from Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA, will then command the
station’s robotic arm to release HTV-6, loaded with station trash, at 10:30
a.m.
The cargo ship will move to a safe distance below and in front of
the station for about a week’s worth of data gathering with a JAXA experiment
designed to measure electromagnetic forces using a tether in low-Earth orbit.
JAXA is scheduled to deorbit the craft around Feb. 5 and have it burn up
harmlessly over the Pacific Ocean.
The HTV-6 launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern
Japan on Dec. 9 and arrived at the station on Dec. 13. It delivered water,
spare parts and experiment hardware to the six-person station crew, including
six new lithium-ion batteries and adapter plates that replaced the
nickel-hydrogen batteries previously used on the station to store electrical
energy generated by the station’s solar arrays. These were installed through a
blend of complex robotics and two
spacewalks this month.
Check out the full NASA TV schedule and video streaming
information at:
Keep up with the International Space Station, and its research and
crews, at:
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