Japanese rocket sends cargo craft to space station

An unmanned Japanese spaceship soared into orbit from an island launch site on Friday, beginning a weeklong journey to deliver vital supplies to astronauts living on the International Space Station.

The H-2 Transfer Vehicle-3 (HTV-3), nicknamed Kounotori 3 (Japanese for "White Stork 3"), is delivering student science projects, a new camera system, as well as food and spare equipment.

Kounotori 3 lifted off atop a Japanese H-2B rocket at 10:06 p.m. ET (11:06 a.m. Japan time Saturday) from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. It is the third of its kind to fly, following the flights of HTVs 1 and 2 in September 2009 and January 2011, respectively. 

On July 27, the spaceship will fly to within 40 feet (12 meters) from the space station, where it will be plucked from orbit by astronauts steering the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm. Controlling the arm, astronauts Joe Acaba of NASA and Aki Hoshide of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency will move Kounotori 3 to the station's Earth-facing docking port on its Harmony node. The maneuver is scheduled for around 7 a.m. ET. [Inside Japan's Huge Space Truck (Infographic)]

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Among the spaceship's 4 tons (3,600 kilograms) of cargo are two science experiments designed by the student winners of the YouTube Space Lab competition. Students from around the world between the ages of 14 and 18 were invited to design space station experiments and describe them in videos submitted to YouTube. Then public users of the site voted on their favorites.

The winners were Amr Mohamed, 18, of Alexandria, Egypt; and Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma, both 16, of Troy, Mich. Mohamed designed a project to study how microgravity affects the hunting strategy of zebra spiders. Chen and Ma set up an experiment to investigate how different nutrients and compounds affect the growth and virulence of bacteria grown in space.

Chen and Ma were onsite at the Tanegashima Space Center to watch the launch of their experiment, while Mohamed elected to travel to the cosmonaut training center in Star City, Russia, for his prize.

The Japanese cargo freighter is also carrying a new camera for the space station, called the ISERV (International Space Station SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System), which will observe disaster sites on Earth and other areas of interest for environmental studies. Scientists on the ground will be able to direct the camera via remote control.

The HTV-3 launch was the second space station-bound voyage in a week. A Russian Soyuz space capsule launched last weekend to ferry three new space station crew members to orbit.

More space station action is ahead. 

On Sunday, a robotic Russian Progress cargo ship already parked at the space station will undock from the orbiting lab as part of a two-day test of rendezvous systems on the outpost's Russian segment. It will redock at the station on Monday.

Then, on Aug. 1, a new Russian cargo ship will launch toward the space station and — for the first time — dock on the same day. The acclerated docking plan will test new methods to cut down Russia's typical two-day flight time to the station for Progress and Soyuz spacecraft.

The $100 billion, football field-size laboratory is currently home to six astronauts from three countries: the United States, Russia and Japan.

Japan's robotic spaceship is one of a fleet of similar unmanned vehicles that service the space station, including spacecraft built by Russia, Europe and a new entrant from the commercial U.S. company SpaceX. The only vehicle currently capable of flying humans to the lab is Russia's Soyuz, though SpaceX's Dragon is being upgraded to carry astronauts as well.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook  & Google+.

• Photos: Japan's Robotic Space Cargo Ship Fleet
• Space Station's Robotic Cargo Ship Fleet (A Photo Guide)
• Inside Japan's Huge Space Truck (Infographic)