[meteorite-list] NASA TV to Broadcast Cargo Ship Departure from Space Station

[Ron Baalke]

September 22, 2015

MEDIA ADVISORY M15-143

NASA TV to Broadcast Cargo Ship Departure from Space Station

Five weeks after delivering approximately five tons of supplies and 
experiments to the International Space Station, an unpiloted Japanese cargo 
ship is scheduled to depart the station Monday, Sept. 28. NASA Television 
will provide live coverage of the departure beginning at 11 a.m. EDT.

Robotic flight controllers in the Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson 
Space Center in Houston will begin preparing the Japan Aerospace Exploration 
Agency's (JAXA) H-II Transport Vehicle-5 (HTV-5) for unberthing from its 
port on the station's Harmony module several hours before its release.

Expedition 45 Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of JAXA, backed up by NASA Flight 
Engineer Kjell Lindgren, will command the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm 
to release HTV-5, loaded with station trash at about 11:20 a.m. A few hours 
after its release, the cargo ship will fire its engines to begin a controlled 
deorbit and entry through Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up over 
the Pacific Ocean.

HTV-5 carried a variety of experiments and supplies to the space station, 
including the NanoRacks External Payload Platform, which can house multiple 
investigations in the open-space environment of the station, and the 
CALorimetric Electron Telescope investigation, an astrophysics mission that 
measures high energy particles to search for dark matter and the origin of 
cosmic rays.

Also aboard were various nanosatellites used for space research, known as 
CubeSats [1], including 14 Planet Labs Dove satellites, which will capture 
images of Earth for use in humanitarian, environmental and commercial 
applications. GomSpace GOMX-3 is a small satellite containing three radios. 
One radio receives beacons from commercial aircraft to improve air traffic 
monitoring, while the other two test reception and data downlink in the 
L-band, used by GPS satellites, and the X-band, used by the military and for 
weather monitoring, air traffic control and other uses.

HTV-5 also delivered materials to support the Twins Study [2], a compilation 
of 10 investigations designed to gain broader insights into the subtle 
effects of and changes that occur in the environment of space as compared to 
that of Earth by studying two individuals who have the same genetics, but are 
in different environments. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is participating from 
the space station while his identical twin Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut, 
is participating on Earth. The study includes a suite of integrated human 
space physiology and cellular-level experiments.

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

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