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Japan’s new HTV-X cargo spacecraft will leave the International Space Station today (March 6) after a four-month stay, and you can watch the action live.
The vehicle – known as HTV-X1, because it is the first of its kind – is scheduled to be released by the station’s Canadarm2 robot arm today at 12:00 PM EST (1700 GMT).
The HTV-X robot is the successor to Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), who flew nine more cargo missions The International Space Station (ISS) from 2009 to 2020.
The new freighter was launched for the first time on 25 Octwhich carries about 9,000 pounds (4,080 kilograms) of food and other supplies to the laboratory in orbit. On 28 OctHTV-X1 reached its destination, where it was grabbed by Canadarm2 and attached to the station’s Harmony module.
The arm removed the vehicle from the module on Thursday (March 5), then began positioning it for today’s planned release.
The HTV-X1 will stay up for a while after that happens.
“The HTV-X1 spacecraft will remain in orbit for more than three months and serve as a science platform for JAXA’s experiments,” NASA officials said in an update Monday (March 2), referring to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
“After the deorbit command, the spacecraft will shed several thousand pounds of debris during re-entry into the Earth’s atmospherewhere it will burn up harmlessly,” they added.
Three other freighters are also carrying cargo up to the ISS these days – Russia’s Progress vehicle, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnusand Dragon, which is built by SpaceX. Dragon is the only one that can be reused.
