Japanese HTV supply carrier reaches space station

Japan’s fifth HTV cargo freighter completed a five-day flight to the International Space Station on Wednesday, making a glacial laser-guided approach to the complex with a 9,500-pound package of food, spare parts and experiments. The experiments are devoted to studying how the human body changes in space, a prime objective of NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s nearly one-year stay aboard the outpost. Other investigations delivered by the H-2 Transfer Vehicle include a cosmic ray telescope designed to probe exotic dark matter in the universe and a commercially-funded experiment devised to examine how Japanese spirits age in zero gravity. Astronauts will not consume the samples, which were provided by Japanese distiller Suntory, but the spirits will be stored aboard the space station and returned to Earth for analysis. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 25)