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JAXA HTV-4 Makes Rendezvous With the ISS

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
August 9, 2013
Filed under

Japan’s HTV-4 Cargo Ship Arrives at the International Space Station [Watch], NASA
Six days after launching from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan, the unpiloted Japanese Kounotori4 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-4), met up with The International Space Station.
It was captured by the Expedition 36 crew aboard the ISS, using the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. The HTV-4 was launched with more than 3 1/2 tons of cargo and experiments for delivery to the ISS.

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One response to “JAXA HTV-4 Makes Rendezvous With the ISS”

  1. Steve Whitfield says:
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    I’m a big fan of HTV and ATV. Their demonstrated level of autonomy is a big step forward. Once (if?) we finally get BEO missions happening and have assets farther out in space, I think the HTV/ATV concept is going to become a major factor, providing non-stop supply lines out-system and material returns in-system.

    If I were a wealthy entrepreneur, I’d be thinking about setting up a commercial service between LEO/cislunar space and Mars/Asteroid Belt/Jupiter and selling transport services to all comers. I might even go as far as Saturn and set up robotic ice miners in the rings. It’s a long, slow trip to Saturn, but if you have multiple “transporters” in the loop, you’d have regular in-coming loads. Once set up, “collecting” ice will likely be cheaper than “mining” it from a surface, and I’ll bet it’s much purer, simplifying processing. The key to exploiting space is to think one step ahead of the current requirements.