JAXA HTV departure from ISS to test revised robotic Dextre operations plan

The JAXA HTV 4 spacecraft is pictured with the Canadian robot arm and Dextre. Credit: NASA

Japan's fourth H-2 Transfer Vehicle will leave the International Space Station on Wednesday, and the astronauts in charge of releasing the unmanned cargo carrier will use a new technique to keep the HTV steady and avoid the recurrence of a hair-trigger abort that expedited the departure of a previous mission.

Filled with trash and other unneeded gear, the HTV will be released from the space station's 58-foot robotic arm at about 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) Wednesday.

Using a control panel inside the space station, astronauts will command the HTV to retreat from the complex a few minutes later, beginning a preprogrammed sequence of two separation burns with the ship's rocket thrusters.

Space station flight engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano closed the HTV's hatches Tuesday to prepare for the departure.

The robotic cargo freighter delivered 3.6 tons of supplies and experiments to the space station Aug. 9 after a five-day transit from a Japanese launch pad to the orbiting outpost.

The astronauts unpacked food, spare parts, experiments and other equipment from the HTV's pressurized compartment, while ground controllers put two robotic arms and a two-armed robotic handyman to work outside the space station to handle the spacecraft's cache of external cargo.

The Canadian-built Dextre robot stowed a main bus switching unit, utility transfer assembly, and an experiment package sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department on platforms mounted on the space station's truss.

Dextre retrieved an older U.S. military experiment - part of the Air Force's Space Test Program - and placed it on the HTV's exposed cargo pallet, then the platform was put back inside the cargo craft Aug. 30.

The trash and experiment box packed inside the HTV will be destroyed during re-entry over the Pacific Ocean on Saturday.

Perched on the end of the station's Canadian robot arm, the HTV will be removed from its berthing port on the Harmony module early Wednesday and maneuvered to a location about 30 feet below the complex.

When astronauts get the go to release the 33-foot-long spacecraft, they will follow a new plan devised after trouble encountered when the third HTV left the space station in September 2012.

After its release from the robot arm, the HTV 3 spacecraft began to drift outside of a predetermined box. Its on-board computers sensed the unplanned movement.

"When we released it with the arm, it imparted a moment on the spacecraft, which caused the spacecraft to translate a little bit," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager.

"The abort itself was required because of the moment put on it with the arm. The big thing about the abort was it used the main engines, which put a higher plume and heating load out there close to ISS. Both of those issues have been dealt with between then and now," Suffredini said.

Nasa ISS Image: Cubesats sent into orbit

Nasa Astronauts record small (Cube) satellites leaving the ISS earlier today, jettisoned from the Japanese robot arm.

Credit: NASA

Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle-3 Being Readied For Release by Canadarm2

The International Space Station's Canadarm2 unberths the unpiloted Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-3), filled with trash and unneeded items, in preparation for its release from the station.

JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide and NASA astronaut Joe Acaba, both Expedition 32 flight engineers, used the station's robot arm to grapple the HTV-3 and unberth it from the Earth-facing port of the Harmony node.

The cargo craft was released at 11:50 a.m. (EDT) on Sept. 12, 2012.

Roscosmos to launch Soyuz from Kourou for first time - despite loss of Progress-M

The maiden flight of a Soyuz from Europe's space base will go ahead as scheduled on October 20, as it is a different version from the rocket involved in Wednesday's launch failure by Russia, Arianespace said on Thursday.

"The problem that occurred yesterday is linked to a third-stage motor, and the Soyuz model that we will be using uses a different third stage," Jean-Yves Le Gall, president and chief executive of the launch company, told AFP.

"It is not the same version of the rocket."

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia are deploying Soyuz at Kourou, French Guiana, under a 2003 accord to provide a mid-sized launcher for Arianespace, which markets ESA's launch vehicles.

The model that will be deployed there is a Soyuz-ST, a spinoff of the Soyuz-2. It is designed to take nearly three tonnes into geostationary transfer orbit.

Its first flight will lift the first two staellites in Europe's Galileo navigation system, the competitor to the US Global Positioning System (GPS).

"In principle, the launch date of October 20 is confirmed, because the Soyuz being used for Galileo is not impacted by yesterday's failure," said Le Gall.

An unnamed Russian official told the Interfax news agency on Thursday that "the launch of Soyuz carrier rockets" had been suspended until the loss of a unmanned craft taking cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) had been explained.

The move has caused a ripple of concern for the crew of the ISS, as the Soyuz, a workhorse of space for half a century, is used both as a launcher for cargo and for passenger vehicles.

If the Soyuz-launched Progress freigher is out of operation, that will leave the ISS with ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV).

The latest ATV, Edoardo Amaldi, is currently being brought by ship to Kourou.

"Its scheduled launch is February 28 2012," said Le Gall, who said there was "a small margin" for bringing it forward if need be, but this would only be by a few days given the tight schedule.

The ISS has capsules moored to the station enabling all crew onboard to return to Earth, either on scheduled missions or in an emergency.

Russian Progress rocket failure grounds human launches

A Russian rocket and cargo ship have crashed in a failed attempt to reach the International Space Station. The failure will halt crewed launches to the space station at least temporarily, since they rely on the same Soyuz family of rockets as the one that failed.

The Soyuz-U rocket lifted off at 1300 GMT on Wednesday, carrying a Progress cargo ship intended to bring supplies to the space station.

But an unknown problem caused the Soyuz to shut down its third-stage engine prematurely, so that it never reached orbit. NASA says Russian space officials told them it crashed in Russia's Altai region, which is near Kazakhstan.

The Progress vehicle contained 2.9 tonnes of supplies, including water and food. But NASA says the space station's six-person crew is in no danger of running out of critical items anytime soon.

They have enough food and other consumables to last at least until Europe's cargo ship, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), is scheduled to arrive. That is currently set for February, but possibly it could arrive as late as May, Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station manager, said in a news briefing.

Even without Soyuz flights, planned ATV flights as well as flights of Japan's HTV cargo vehicle could keep supplies from running out through the end of 2012, he said.

If there were a disruption to these flights, bathroom supplies might be the first thing to run out, he said: "If I was counting on which consumables would drive us, it might be potty parts in the end."

DARPA: HTV-2 hit Mach 20 before crash

A superfast unmanned military plane traveled at 20 times the speed of sound and managed to control itself for three minutes before crashing into the Pacific Ocean in a recent test, military officials said.

The prototype Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), billed as the fastest aircraft ever built, splashed down in the Pacific earlier than planned on Aug. 11 shortly after launching from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on its second-ever test flight.

The HTV-2 experienced some sort of anomaly, prompting the vehicle's autonomous flight safety system to guide it to a controlled splashdown, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which oversaw the flight.

Despite the problem, the aircraft reached speeds around Mach 20 (about 13,000 mph) and was able to control its flight for several minutes, officials said.

US military loses contact with HTV, hypersonic aircraft

US military scientists on Thursday launched a hypersonic aircraft but lost contact with the experimental plane in its second test flight, officials said.

The unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2), designed as a global bomber prototype capable of a mind-boggling 20 times the speed of sound, launched successfully from California aboard a Minotaur IV rocket, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

But after the plane separated from the rocket in the upper reaches of the atmosphere for its "glide" phase, contact was lost, DARPA said.

"Range assets have lost telemetry with HTV2," DARPA wrote in a Twitter post after the launch.

The agency provided no other details about the flight or how long it had been separated from the rocket.

Last year, scientists lost contact with the HTV-2 after nine minutes in its inaugural flight.

The hypersonic plane, which is supposed to travel at Mach 20, or 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers) per hour, could potentially provide the US military with a platform for striking targets anywhere on the planet within minutes using conventional weapons.

Such a weapon, still in development, is part of what the US Air Force has dubbed "prompt global strike" capability.

"The ultimate goal is a capability that can reach anywhere in the world in less than an hour," DARPA said on its website.

In theory, the Falcon could travel between New York City and Los Angeles in less than 12 minutes.

Unlike a ballistic missile, a hypersonic vehicle could maneuver and avoid flying along a predictable path. Moreover, analysts say it would not be mistaken for a nuclear missile, avoiding the possibility of triggering a nuclear confrontation.

But Loren Thompson, an analyst at Lexington Institute with links to the defense industry, said there was still much work to be done before the hypersonic bomber becomes a reality.

"The military has a long way to go before hypersonic vehicles are ready for deployment," Thompson told AFP.

After separating from the rocket Thursday, the Falcon undertook some maneuvers before contact was lost, DARPA said.

The test flight plan called for the Falcon to eventually roll and dive into the Pacific Ocean.

(DARPA) shows the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2)

This artist's rendition released by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) shows the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2).

The Falcon HTV-2 is an unmanned, rocket-launched, manoeuvrable aircraft that will glide through the Earth’s atmosphere at incredibly fast speeds, Mach 20 (approximately 13,000 miles per hour)
 

Picture: AP/DARPA

Japan's JAXA HTV "Kounotori" photo on orbi

Japan's JAXA HTV "Kounotori" photo in orbit attached to ISS.

NASA ISS JAXA HTV repositioning: Don’t drop it now!

HTV during relocations. Don’t drop it now, it will go on vacation in the Caribbean!!

After Discovery leaves, HTV is relocated from ISS zenith to nadir

NASA - Dextre Gets to Work

Dextre, the Canadian Space Agency's robotic "handyman", is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 26 crew member aboard the International Space Station on Feb. 3, 2011.

Dextre completed its first real job since the robot passed its final exam in December 2010, unpacking two critical pieces of equipment delivered by the unpiloted Japanese Kounotori2 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV2) spacecraft - the space equivalent of a moving van.

HTV2 is the second unpiloted cargo ship launched by JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, to the station and delivered more than four tons of food and supplies to the station and its crew members.

Image Credit: NASA

JAXA: HTV2 Kounotori Launch video

JAXA: HTV2 Kounotori profile video

This is an interesting video published by JAXA highlighting Japan’s HTV2 cargo vehicle Kounotori: the technology, the operations and the mission profile. Like ATV, HTV2 is an unmanned transfer vehicle that carries water, food, clothes and equipment to the International Space Station. Kounotori is scheduled for launch on 20 January from the Tanegashima Space Center.

Cargo spaceship HTV, meets the ISS catcher in the sky

If the first launch of Japan's new heavy-lifting rocket passes without incident this month, the residents of the International Space Station will soon be taking delivery of food, water, some spanking new laptops, a robot arm and a couple of Earth-observing experiments.

Business as usual, you might think, except that the way this particular cargo gets to its destination is subtly different to its predecessors.

The reason? The cargo is being carried by the latest uncrewed spacecraft to vie for a place in the emerging market to supply the ISS. The driving force behind this latest space race is the impending retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet, sometime in 2010.

This latest vehicle is the work of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. JAXA's H-II Transfer Vehicle, or HTV, offers the space station a range of new capabilities.

First flight nerves
HTV is scheduled for lift-off sometime between 10 September and the end of the month, on board the HII-B launch vehicle, which has never flown before – and the record of successful first rocket launches is poor. For instance, the giant Ariane 5, which carries ESA's ATV, failed to launch several times before the glitches in the technology were finally ironed out.

A variant of JAXA's workhorse HII-A rocket, the HII-B has four solid rocket boosters instead of the HII-A's two – and has two main liquid-fuelled engines instead of the HII-A's one.

"This is indeed the HII-B's first launch. But many of the components are already working well on the HII-A," says Miyake. "We have great confidence in it."