Sep. 1, 2015

The Japanese telescope, which Italy made a large contribution to developing, reached the ISS on 24 August on board the HTV cargo rocket. The rocket docked at 12.28 pm Italian time.

After a journey lasting nearly 5 days, the Japanese HTV-5 “Kounotori” cargo ship has reached the International Space Station. The docking with the “cosmic house” took place on 24 August at 06.28 EDT (12.28 pm in Italy) with the help of theCanadarm 2 robotic arm, manoeuvred by Japanese astronautKimiya Yui.
The cargo will then be anchored to the hatch of the Harmony module. “Kounotori” was launched from Tanegashima Space Centre on 19 August.
The HTV-5, whose name means “white stork”, brought theExpedition 44 astronauts around 4.5 metric tons of materials, including supplies for the ISS and scientific equipment.
One of these is CALET (CALorimetric Electron Telescope): the second space observation instrument sent to the Station, following the AMS-02 “installed” on the ISS in 2011.
CALET is a scientific mission led by Japanese Space Agency JAXA in participation with the Italian Space Agency and NASA.
Once anchored on the JEM-EF platform outside the Japanese Kibo laboratory, CALET will start its five year mission to research and study dark matter, spectrums of nuclei coming from space and picking up gamma rays, high energy and intensity bursts of light emitted during particularly violent phenomena that take place in some astrophysical sources.