Japan Rocket Lifts Supplies To Space Station After Foreign Failures

KAGOSHIMA, JAPAN - AUG. 19: Japan successfully launched a rocket carrying supplies to the International Space Station from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture on Wednesday, the nation's space agency said, after similar missions by other countries failed recently. The H2B rocket lifted off at 8:50 p.m. Japan time, delivering the Konotori 5 cargo transporter into orbit some 15 minutes later, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA said. The unmanned transporter, carrying 5.5 tons of supplies and experimental equipment, is due to reach the ISS, which flies about 400 kilometers above Earth, at around 8 p.m. Monday. The launch of the Konotori, which means a stork in Japanese, had been postponed twice due to bad weather. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, 45, who is on the ISS, will use a robotic arm to dock the transporter with the ISS, JAXA said. The mission follows the recent failures to send U.S. Dragon and Russian Progress cargo spacecraft to the ISS. JAXA has succeeded in all five launches of the domestically developed H-2B rocket. When adding launches of its predecessor, the H2A rocket, the agency has succeeded 27 times in a row, with a success rate of 97 percent. A large number of people waited for the rocket launch on Tanegashima, an island located 115 kilometers south of Japan's southwestern main island of Kyushu.