Japan to Launch New ISS Resupply Vehicle in Oct.

Tokyo, Aug. 22 (Jiji Press)–The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said Friday that it will launch the first HTV-X new resupply vehicle to the International Space Station at around 10:58 a.m. on Oct. 21.

The new vehicle is scheduled to be launched on the seventh H3 rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Kagoshima.

It is a successor to the HTV, or Kounotori, which carried out nine missions until 2020. The new vehicle is about 8 meters long and can carry approximately 5.8 tons of cargo, up from about 4 tons with Kounotori.

Kounotori was launched on an H-2B rocket, an enhanced version of the H-2A rocket, due to its heavier weight compared with a regular satellite. For the seventh H3 rocket, the number of solid rocket boosters will increase to four from two used in the first to fifth H3 rockets.

In addition, JAXA plans to launch the sixth H3 rocket without SRBs by March 2026.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]