Cargo spacecraft "HTV-6" (Kounotori-6)

Spacecraft nr:

Japanese spacecraft nr: 222

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.
• The J-SSOD #5 contains the following cubesats:
  STARS-C Oyaki and Koki ('parent' and 'child'), two 1U cubesats connected by a tether, from Shizuoka University which is contining the earlier STARS experiments by Kagawa U. STARS-C appears to have the alternate name 'Hagoromo', also used for a 1990 lunar orbiter.
• The J-SSOD #6 contains the following cubesats:
  • EGG, a U. Tokyo 3U cubesat with a 0.6m deployable aeroshell for controlled reentry.
  • ITF-2, from Tsukuba University, a 1U amateur radio payload.
  • AOBA-VeloxIII is a 2U mission from Kyushu Tech and NTU of Singapore with a micropropulsion system.
  • FREEDOM, a 1U cubesat with a 1.5m deorbit drag device, from Nakashima Engineering of Hirokawa and Tohoku University.
  • Waseda-Sat3, a 1U cubesat from Waseda University with a large thin film drag sail.
  • TuPOD, from GAUSS SRi (Rome), a 3U cubesat containing (and ejecting) two cylindrical 'Tubesats', each 0.75 kg, 0.09m dia 0.13m long. The tubesats are TANCREDO-1 from a school in Ubatuba, Brazil and OSNSAT from the Open Space Network of Mountain View, California.
• The NRCSD-10 contains four Lemur-2 3U cubesats from Spire Global, and the TechEdSat-5 (TES-5) from NASA-Ames. TES-5 will carry out a controlled reentry experiment with an 'exobrake' drag sail. In addition, the Honeywell/Morehead U. DM-7 'dependable multiprocessor' experiment will be attached to the Nanoracks External Platform on the Kibo exposed facility; it is a 1U box.
• The HTV also has an Exposed Pallet, which on this mission (using the enhanced capacity EP6B+) carries a set of replacement batteries for the ISS truss, with a total cargo mass of 1367 kg. The S4, S6, P4 and P6 truss segments each contain an Integrated Electronics Assembly (IEA), with 12 Ni-H2 batteries apiece in separate ORUs (Orbital Replacement Units). On this mission the S4 batteries are to be replaced. Six new 197 kg Li-ion battery ORUs will be installed and six of the 166 kg Ni-H2 battery ORUs will be transferred to the HTV EP for disposal on reentry. The remaining six Ni-H2 ORUs will remain on S4, but they will be taken off line and new 29 kg Adapter Plate ORUs will be installed between them and the truss.

Mission details:

• The 16-tonne Japanese HTV-6 (Kounotori-6) cargo ship was launched on Dec 9, 2016. The pressurized module contains 600 kg of water and 2152 kg of dry cargo. This includes two JAXA J-SSOD and one Nanoracks NRCSD-10 cubesat deployers; these will be transferred to the Kibo module.
• The spacecraft completed an automated rendezvous and delivered more than 9,000 pounds (about 4.1 metric tons) of supplies, experiments and six lithium-ion batteries to begin a refresh of the research lab’s electrical system.
• On Dec 14, 2016 the Exposed Pallet was grappled by the Canadarm-2, pulled out of HTV-6 and attached to the Mobile Base System on the ISS truss.
  On Dec 15-16 the J-SSOD #5 was moved to the Kibo module's airlock.
  On Dec 19 the Japanese RMS arm took the MPEP platform, with J-SSOD attached, out of the airlock and the STARS-C cubesat was ejected from it at 0855 UTC. On Dec 27 J-SSOD #6 was installed in the airlock with its sats to be deployed in January 2017.
• While astronauts inside the station unpacked fresh food, provisions and other goods inside the HTV’s pressurized cargo module, the station’s robotic arm — under the control of engineers on the ground — pulled a pallet holding the six new batteries out of the spaceship’s external payload bay and began replacing old power packs on the starboard S4 power truss.
  The batteries hold electrical charge generated by the space station′s huge solar array wings.
  
• The battery swaps began Dec. 31, 2016 and astronauts went outside on two spacewalks Jan. 6 and Jan. 13, 2017 to secure the old batteries for disposal and long-term storage.
  Twelve old nickel-hydrogen batteries were replaced on this mission — each new unit has the capacity of two old batteries — and nine of the outgoing batteries were mounted on the HTV cargo pallet for disposal at the end of the craft′s mission.
• The three other disused batteries are stored on adapter plates also delivered by Kounotori 6 and now affixed outside the station.
  Eighteen more lithium-ion batteries are scheduled to head for the space station on the next three HTV missions in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
• Japan's HTV 6 cargo ship separated from ISS on Jan 27, 2017 at 15:46 UTC. However, its KITE tether experiment failed to deploy when commanded to do so on Jan 28. HTV 6 was deorbited on Feb 5, 2017 at 14:42 UTC and entered the atmosphere over the South Pacific at 15:06 UTC.

Astrophilately covers:

Launch cancel. Credit: #421