spacetoday.net: Japanese, Russian vehicles arrive at ISS

Posted: Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 12:33 PM ET (1633 GMT)
Progress M-15M redocking with ISS (NASA)

A new Japanese cargo spacecraft berthed with the International Space Station on Friday while a Russian cargo vehicle redocked with the station on its second try Saturday. The HTV-3 spacecraft, launched on July 21, was captured by the station's robotic arm at 8:23 am EDT (1223 GMT) Friday and berthed to the station's Harmony module several hours later. The cargo spacecraft is carrying 4.6 tons of supplies and equipment for the ISS, including several cubesats that will later be deployed from the ISS. On Saturday, a Progress M-15M spacecraft docked with the station's Pirs module at 9:01 pm EDT (0101 GMT Sunday). The Progress, which originally arrived at the station in April, had undocked from the station on July 22 with plans to redock with the station Monday, testing a new rendezvous antenna. That redocking was aborted when the antenna malfunctioned, an issue traced to overheating of the equipment.