Cargo spacecraft "HTV 3" (Kounotori 3)

Spacecraft nr:

Japanese spacecraft nr: 177

Description:

• Developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, as a contribution to the space station program, the HTV is 32 feet long and 14.4 feet wide. It is designed to carry both pressurized and unpressurized cargo, including equipment too big to pass through the space station's hatches. For it's third flight, the HTV is loaded with 3.9 tons of pressurized cargo, including an aquatic habitat, five small "CubeSats" and a satellite launcher, a catalytic reactor for the station's water processing system and a water pump. Also on board: Japanese food, beverages and crew clothing.
• HTV-3's unpressurized Exposed Pallet carries two packages, JAXA's MCE (Multi-mission consolidated equipment / poto kyoju jikken sochi), and NASA-Glenn's SCAN Testbed. MCE includes a ionosphere experiment (IMAP), a lightning study sensor (GLIMS), an inflatable membrane experiment (SIMPLE) and REXJ, a robotics experiment. SCAN Testbed has S-band, Ka-band and L-band antennas to test out sofware-defined-radio technologies.
• The HTV-3 pressurized module contains 8 HTV Resupply Racks with station supplies and equipment, including two J-SSOD picosat deployers and the MPEP adapter. Later this year, astronauts will attach the J-SSOD packages to the MPEP and then put the MPEP in the Kibo module's small science airlock. When the airlock is opened to space, JAXA's JEM-RMS robot arm will grab the MPEP and stick it pointing in the desired direction. The J-SSODs will then shoot out their contents, five small satellites. The first J-SSOD carries RAIKO and WE WISH. The second J-SSOD carries three 1 kg single-cubes: F-1, TechEdSat and the Niwaka.

Mission details:

• Japan's HTV 3 (Kounotori 3) cargo ship was launched on Jul 21, 2012 at 02:06 UT.
• The Japanese HTV-3 was berthed on the Harmony node on Jul 27, 2012.
  The SSRMS grappled the HTV Exposed Pallet on Jul 27, and unberthed it at 0709 UTC on Aug 6. SSRMS transferred the EP to the JEM RMS arm, which then installed the EP on the Kibo Exposed Facility at the EFU 10 slot at 1204 UTC Aug 6 for offloading of its cargo, the SCAN and MCE packages.
• On Aug 7 the Canadian SSRMS/Dextre robotics system was used to move NASA's SCaN Testbed payload from the EP to the ELC-3 pallet on the truss. On Aug 9 the Japanese JEM-RMS robot arm was used to move the MCE package from the EP to slot 8 in the EF. Finally, on Aug 10, the JEM and SSRMS arms were used to move the empty EP back into the HTV cargo ship; it will be destroyed on reentry after HTV undocks.
  
  

  HTV-3 approch the station

  HTV-3 departure

  
  
  
• On Sep 12, 2012 the Japanese HTV-3 cargo ship was unberthed by the SSRMS arm at about 1202 UTC and released into space at 1550 UTC. After one of HTV-3's onboard computers failed, a planned small separation burn was replaced by a much larger abort burn which safely and rapidly separated HTV-3 from the vicinity of the ISS. HTV-3 was successfully deorbited over the Pacific on Sep 14.
• On Oct 4, 2012 the two J-SSOD cubesat deployers were moved outside the Kibo equipment airlock by the JEM-RMS robot arm. The first J-SSOD ejected its payloads at 1432 UTC - the RAIKO and We Wish cubesats. The second J-SSOD deployed F-1, Niwaka, and TechEdSat at 1544 UTC.

Astrophilately covers:

Cancel Houston. Credit: #425