The first HTV Small Re-entry Capsule (HSRC) operation highlight with regard to crew's assembly and re-entry

摘要

HTV Small Re-entry Capsule (HSRC) is a mission developed by JAXA in order to demonstrate re-entry as well as capability to recover experimental samples from the International Space Station (ISS). The HSRC was transferred to the ISS as an internal cargo of HTV-7, which is 7th mission of JAXA H-II transfer Vehicle (HTV) "KOUNOTORI" and was launched and berthed to ISS on September 2018 and re-entered on November 2018. In this HTV-7 mission, after completing the re-supply cargo to ISS, we demonstrated this novel technology for recovering experiment samples from ISS, which Japan had not obtained up until now, by taking advantage of the opportunity of re-entry into Earth with the HSRC for the first time ever. After all HTV-7 deorbit burns finished, the capsule was separated from HTV-7 by the command from the ground to activate the separation mechanism of HSRC. HSRC successfully re-entered Earth's atmosphere in a guided lift flight, deployed a parachute, and splashed down into the sea, then was picked up by recovery ship. On the ship samples taken out from the HSRC were loaded onto an airplane on Minamitori Island, immediately delivered to Tsukuba Space Center. JAMSS, as a contractor of JAXA, highly contributes to this mission success by support of operation, preparation, crew interface test and crew training. This paper documents this new and very challenging mission for the first time ever to JAXA. Also, it explains what kinds of difficulty we experienced and made solutions, which will contribute to next generation HSRC planned near future.