[meteorite-list] 15-Ton Manmade Fireball Expected on March 29 (HTV)

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/h2b/htv2/status.html


By Stephen Clark
Spaceflight Now

THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2011

With space shuttle Discovery's mission complete, astronauts on the 
International Space Station robotically moved Japan's reflective 
orange cargo freighter Thursday to the bottom of the lab's Harmony 
module.

The five-hour task sets the stage for final packing of the H-2 Transfer 
Vehicle with trash and refuse before the 33-foot-long craft leaves 
the space station March 28.

The ship delivered 8,500 pounds of experiments, supplies and spare 
parts to the station when it arrived Jan. 27. With the bulk of the 
unpacking already complete, the crew's attention is turning to 
stowing unnecessary items inside the HTV's pressurized cargo hold.

The trash includes bulky packing material carried to the space station 
inside the Permanent Multipurpose Module, a new storage room delivered by 
Discovery that was filled with supplies and experiments to keep the lab 
operating and producing science results.

But the HTV's mission was interrupted by Discovery's visit over the last 
few weeks. Nicknamed Kounotori 2, the HTV approached the space station 
from below, was grasped by the outpost's Canadian robot arm and placed 
on the Harmony connecting module's nadir, or Earth-facing, berthing port.

But that position would have been in the way of some of Discovery's 
mission tasks, so managers opted to move the HTV to Harmony's zenith, 
or space-facing, port Feb. 18.

Kounotori 2 must depart the space station from the bottom of the complex, 
so astronauts had to move the craft back to Harmony's nadir port Thursday.

Space station flight engineers Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli commanded 
the lab's robot arm for the relocation operation from the seven-window 
cupola, which offers crews an almost boundless view of the vehicle's 
exterior. Station commander Scott Kelly assisted Coleman and Nespoli.

Unbolting of the 15-ton spacecraft began around 1100 GMT (6 a.m. EST) and 
after a carefully choreographed series of robot arm maneuvers, Coleman 
and Nespoli placed the HTV on Harmony's nadir port at about 1620 GMT 
(11:20 a.m. EST).

Then two stages of bolts drove to create a firm connection between 
Harmony and the HTV.

The HTV is scheduled to be grappled again by the robot arm March 28, 
unberthed from the space station and released about 30 feet below the 
outpost.

Japanese controllers at the Tsukuba Space Center outside Tokyo plan to 
order the expendable spacecraft back into Earth's atmosphere March 29 
over the Pacific Ocean, destroying the ship and its load of space 
station garbage.