Gift-giving is an important part of the holiday season. Now, even astronauts aboard the International Space Station can receive gifts, thanks to a Japanese cargo spacecraft.
A capsule called "Kounotori 6", or "White Stork", was launched atop an H-IIB rocket four days ago, December 9. It contained 5 tons of food, water, batteries and other crew commodities including TV cameras and Small Satellite Orbital Deployer.
The success of this mission was celebrated by flight controllers in Japan and Houston, and this is said to be a welcome event especially after space launch failures of the Russian and SpaceX supply ships two weeks ago.
The launch was initially scheduled in September, but a leaking pipe was detected during a pressurization test, postponing the launch. It took days for the cargo ship to reach the ISS, Science World Report said. The gifts arrived on Tuesday at the International Space Station. NASA said that there were also Christmas presents for the two Americans, three Russians and one Frenchman on board.
American Commander, Shane Kimbrough, and French Thomas Pesquet used a robotic arm made in Canada, Canadarm 2, to capture the cargo ship from the orbit which hovered 250 miles above Chile. "The vehicle is beautiful, and it performed flawlessly," Kimbrough said.
The pressurized section of Kounotori 6 contained seven CubeSats, while in the unpressurized section of the ship, six new lithium-ion batteries were sent. These lithium batteries will replace the currently used 12 nickel-hydrogen batteries for the forthcoming space walks scheduled on Jan. 6 and Jan. 13, 2017, Space Flight Insider reported.
"Based on a lot of the equipment that's brought up, we're going to see a lot of robotic and spacewalk activity coming up in the new few weeks, and it's going to be really exciting," Kimbrough said after receiving the cargo. Kounotori 6 is scheduled to remain berthed for the next six weeks.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
