A robotic Japanese spacecraft carrying food, equipment, and student science experiments for the International Space Station successfully docked with the orbital outpost.<\/p>\n
The third in a series of robotic Japanese spaceships has safely arrived at the International Space Station today (July 27), bearing a delivery of food, equipment and student science experiments for the orbital outpost. <\/p>\n
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The unmanned, school bus-size H-2 Transfer Vehicle-3 (HTV-3), also called Kounotori 3 (\"White Stork\" in Japanese), flew to about 40 feet (12 meters)away from the ISS, where it was grabbed at 8:23 a.m. ET (1223 GMT) by the space station's 58-foot long (18 m) robotic arm, which was controlled from inside by astronauts Joe Acaba of NASA and Aki Hoshide of JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency). <\/p>\n
Using the Canadarm2 robotic arm, Acaba and Hoshide maneuvered Kounotori 3 to the Earth-facing docking port on the space station's Harmony node at 10:34 a.m. ET (1434 GMT). <\/p>\n
\"I think we couldnt have had a better day and we're looking forward to a great HTV mission,\" Capcom Cady Coleman told the astronauts from Mission Control in Houston. <\/p>\n
\"You guys were great, thanks a lot for helping us out,\" Acaba replied. \"Thanks a lot for all the food.\" <\/p>\n
Today's arrival follows thefailed docking attempton Monday (July 23) of an unmanned Russian Progress spacecraft. The Progress 47 craft was testing a new rendezvous system, which apparently failed to work as planned. The vehicle, which had already been at the space station, had undocked in order to test the new system in a re-docking. Russia plans to try again on Sunday (July 29) to dock the Progress 47. <\/p>\n
Kounotori launchedatop a Japanese H-2B rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan on July 20. It is the third such vehicle launched from Japan, following the flights ofHTVs 1 and 2in September 2009 and January 2011, respectively.[Photos: Japan Launches 3rd Robotic Supply Ship to Space Station] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Success: Japanese robot spaceship docks with space station<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A robotic Japanese spacecraft carrying food, equipment, and student science experiments for the International Space Station successfully docked with the orbital outpost. The third in a series of robotic Japanese spaceships has safely arrived at the International Space Station today (July 27), bearing a delivery of food, equipment and student science experiments for the orbital outpost Continue reading