Cargo spacecraft "HTV 4" (Kounotori 4)

Spacecraft nº:

Japanese spacecraft nº: 184

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.

Mission details:

• Launch delayed from June 10, 2013.
• On Aug 3, 2013 Japan launched the fourth H-II Transfer Vehicle, Kounotori-4, to deliver cargo to the ISS. HTV carries pressurized cargo that will be transferred through the Harmony module hatch and an external pallet whose payloads will be installed using the robot arms.
• The EP carries the Space Test Program H4 package to be installed on ELC1, a spare Main Bus Switching Unit for ELC2, and a spare SARJ Utility Transfer Assembly for ELC4. The MBSU is around 100 kg; the STP-H4 and UTA are each probably around 300 to 400 kg.
  The pressurized cargo is packaged in 8 HTV Resupply Racks and includes the FROST freezer, the Kirobo robot, NASA's RRM Task Board 3 robotics experiment, and two J-SSOD cubesat launchers. The J-SSODs will be taken outside via the Kibo science airlock and will eject their passengers. One J-SSOD carries three 1U cubesats: Vietnam's PicoDragon, and the US company NanoSatisifi's Arudsat-X and Ardusat-1, which use Arduino open-source processors to run experiments.
  The other J-SSOD carries TechEdSat-3p, a 3U cubesat from NASA-Ames and San Jose State University, which will deploy an 0.6m `Exobrake' sail to test a way to increase the cubesat's drag and make it reenter quickly.
• HTV 4 reached the ISS on Aug 9, 2013 holding 10 metres off the Station until the Canadarm-2 robot arm captured it at 1122 UTC. The arm berthed the module on the Harmony node at 1528 UTC, and it was firmly bolted to ISS ten minutes later. The hatch to the pressurized cabin of the HTV was opened at 1111 UTC Aug 10. On Aug 11 at 2107 UTC the Canadarm removed the Exposed Pallet (EP) from the HTV, and at 0359 UTC Aug 12 the EP was installed on the end of the Kibo Exposed Facility pallet. The equipment on the EP will be relocated to the ELC pallets on the truss using the Japanese and Canadian robot arms.
  
  

  Arrival HTV-4 at ISS

  Depart HTV-4 from ISS

  
  
  
• Japan's HTV 4 was unberthed from Harmony at 1207 UTC Sep 4, 2013 and released by the Canadarm at 1620 UTC. Later on Sep 4 its orbit was lowered from 408 x 411 km to 188 x 407 km. Early on Sep 7 it began lowering its orbit further, with burns at 0007 and 0137 UTC reaching a 151 x 408 km orbit; a final burn during a descending pass over Japan at 0611 UTC resulted in an orbit around -10 x 407 km, with reentry and burnup over the South Pacific around 41 deg S at 0637 UTC.

Astrophilately covers:

Docking cancel ISS, with board cancel, signed by ISS-37 crew. Credit: #401