Japan's Best Spaceship Yet, HTV-X

Hello everybody, welcome to tomorrow. On Sunday, September 14th, SpaceX launched the Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL vehicle, the cargo spacecraft for the International Space Station, with supplies of experiments for the next six months of operations there. As of right now, it should be arriving at the International Space Station on Wednesday, September 17th, if all goes well. The launch itself went fine, but I was super impressed at the landing footage of the booster. This was the third time that SpaceX has launched one of the Cygnus vehicles for Northrop Grumman, and this footage is just absolutely crazy. Maybe the best footage I've ever seen of the booster coming back in, and this was doing a landing back at the landing zone 2 at Cape Canaveral. Incredible footage. But it's got me thinking about the different cargo vehicles for the International Space Station, and I am very much looking forward to JAXA, the Japanese space agency's newest cargo vehicle, their next, maybe their best spaceship, the HTV-X. We finally have a launch date. As of right now, it is scheduled for no earlier than October 21st. That of course could slip for last minute delays, but it's getting exciting and becoming a lot more real. The Japanese space agency has been doing a lot of work ever since they started the project. Ten years ago, the project actually did get started in 2015 to replace the original HTV vehicle. The last flight of HTV was in 2020, so there's been a five-year gap in Japanese cargo resupply flights. They've been able to do a lot of simplified systems and add more capability to their cargo vehicle. The biggest thing for me is their propulsion element. They have massively simplified their propulsion, getting rid of a whole bunch of different thrusters and getting rid of its main propulsion engine and simply having a ring that has RCS thrusters and doing all of its operations with just that. And it can be done. By firing them in different sequences, you can do all the types of maneuvers that you would need, not only to get to and fro in orbit, but then those close proximity operations and just the ever so slight nudge in every direction in three-dimensional space. Pressurized compartment is basically exactly the same as the original HTV vehicle, but the unpressurized section has a few more capabilities. Essentially external cargo, attachable experiments that are going to go on the outside of the International Space Station anyway. There is a hollow tube, a hollow cylinder that goes through the service module and through the propulsion ring and has racks on it for more external payloads that I'm assuming would be reachable via a robotic arm that would pull them out of that cylinder. Something that was a little bit confusing to me was these mounting plates on the external platform that almost looked like they were flaps of some sort, but it turns out they're actually heat shields to protect the external payloads depending on what their orientation is to the sun. They've also redesigned their solar panels and put them in a unique configuration that will actually change their angle to match the sun so that they can maximize the amount of solar power they can generate during a mission. So minor improvements. It's just a cargo spacecraft, but they do have plans of upgrading it in order to possibly service the Gateway Space Station. And although that might be a whole other topic in and of itself, JAXA has made significant contributions and is building, or at least financing, the construction of one of the major modules of the Gateway Space Station. Although the HTV-X's role is to support human spaceflight, there is a few capabilities baked into it. The first flight might be this October in 2025, but on the second flight in 2026, JAXA intends to test out docking technology. Now, they've already been docking with the space station, right? Well, actually, they've been berthing with the common berthing mechanism. Like its predecessor, it has to be grappled by the station's robotic arm and gently placed to berth with the station. Different type of docking port. It's a berthing port, not a docking port. So on the second mission, they want to test out docking technology to do autonomous docking. It would prove out technology for eventually full-blown human spaceflight. They have always had ambitions of having their own crew capsule someday to be able to do human spaceflight indigenously. And while there are certainly more powerful service modules out there, if it's a simple enough capsule, it might be good enough for at least low Earth orbit operations. There's all sorts of other upgrades and cool plans that they have. Even on the first flight, there is an experiment to test out a new type of communications antenna that can be folded up really simply and not take up a whole bunch of space before launch. They're even testing out new types of solar panels to see if they can come up with the next generation of ever so slightly more efficient solar panels for future missions. Although there might only be a few years left of international space station operations, this will certainly add to the capability and ensure that we can keep going for the last couple of years and also that Japan can ensure that they have been making their proper contributions to the program. Not that they haven't, they do a lot for the program, but that's kind of been part of the deal that they provide cargo flights. In any case, this was just a quick update and rundown on especially JAXA's new cargo vehicle to the International Space Station. And although I, as you know, want to see everyone working together, it would be good for Japan to have as many of their own capabilities as possible. So yeah, what do you think about their new vehicle? And I'm also really curious on your opinion as to whether or not Japan will ever really make their own human spaceflight capsule. Let me know what you think, if they will or not, and why. Thank you very much for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed this quick update about Japan's new HTVX cargo vehicle. My name is Space Mike, and until the next time I see you guys, keep moving onwards and upwards, and don't forget, Peraspera Ad Astra.