JAXA - HTV-6 Mission patch.
January 27, 2017
Image above: HTV-6 resupply ship release operation underway. Image Credits: ISS HD Live/Roland Berga.
Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) and Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA commanded the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to release a Japanese cargo vehicle at 10:46 a.m. EST. At the time of release, the station was flying 261 statute miles above the south Atlantic Ocean. Earlier, ground controllers used the robotic arm to unberth the cargo craft.
Japanese Cargo Ship Departs the ISS
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA’s) H-II Transport Vehicle-6 (HTV-6) arrived to the space station Dec. 13, after launching from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan Dec. 9.
Image above: The Japanese HTV-6 resupply ship is pictured just before its release on astronaut Shane Kimbrough’s 100th day in space. Image Credit: @Astro_Kimbrough.
The cargo ship will now 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 on Feb. 5. Loaded with trash, the vehicle will burn up harmlessly over the Pacific Ocean.
Related link:
JAXA experiment: http://www.ard.jaxa.jp/eng/research/kite/kite.html
For more information about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station.
Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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