And without the ISS, Russia’s human spaceflight program might be dead today.
Ins and outs of HTV-X
Yui used the outpost’s robotic arm to grapple the HTV-X spacecraft at 11:58 am EDT (15:58 UTC) on Wednesday. The capture capped a three-and-a-half-day transit from a launch pad on Tanegashima Island in southern Japan.
The spacecraft flew to space atop Japan’s H3 rocket, replacing the H-II launcher family used for Japan’s previous resupply missions to the ISS. The H3 and HTV-X are both manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Japan’s H3 rocket launched Sunday (local time) from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan, carrying the
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