Cargo spacecraft "HTV-9" (Kounotori 9)

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.
• HTV-9 (Kounotori 9) is the 8th neinht of the H-II Transfer Vehicle, a robotic cargo spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station. The orbiter carried about ** t of cargo, consisting of ** t in the pressurized compartment and ** t in the unpressurized compartment.

Mission details:

• The final H-II Transfer Vehicle, HTV-9 (Kounotori 9) was launched by the also-final H-IIB rocket from Tanegashima on May 20, 2020. It carries new batteries for the S6 truss. HTV 9 was captured by the Canadarm-2 at 1213 UTC May 25 and berthed at the Harmony nadir port at 1446 UTC.
• The HTV pressurized module carries six HTV Resupply Racks and two racks for the ISS: NASA′s Express Rack 11B and ESA′s European Drawer Rack EDR2.
  Also aboard is the iSIM Earth observation camera to be installed on the Kibo Exposed Facility.
• The Japanese HTV cargo ships carry an External Pallet (EP), used in recent missions to carry the replacement ISS batteries. The EP is 900 kg empty and 2.3 tonnes fully loaded. EP-8 was launched on HTV-8 in Sep 2019, and on Jan 21, following the battery replacement spacewalks in January, was stowed on the ISS truss; specifically, on LEE 201 on the Mobile Base System′s Payload ORU Accomodations (MBS POA). It is full of old NiH batteries removed from the P6 truss during the spacewalks (batteries 0087, 0093, 0099, 0097, 0104, 0106, 0103 and 0102).
  EP-9 was launched on HTV-9 in May with a load of new Li-ion batteries.
• The final HTV cargo ship, Kounotori 9, was unberthed from the ISS Harmony nadir port at 1351 UTC Aug 18, 2020 and released into orbit by Canadarm-2 at 1736 UTC. On Aug 20, after orbit lowering burns at 0040 and 0211 UTC it performed the deorbit burn at 0640 UTC Aug 20 and entered the atmosphere at about 0707 UTC over the Pacific. It burnt up on reentry. The EP-8 pallet, with discarded ISS batteries, was aboard.