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Grey Havoc said:http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120721002739.htm
The H-2B, which is designed to be launched once a year, is 56.6 meters high and weighs 531 tons, making it the largest rocket in the history of Japanese space development.
The cargo vehicle, weighing in at 4.6 tons, is carrying such supplies as food and other daily necessities, a water tank for feeding killifish and a device for releasing small satellites into space, the space exploration agency said.
The H-2B was jointly developed by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy for the purpose of carrying the Kounotori, which has a payload capacity of 16.5 tons. The rocket is twice as effective as H-2A rockets at launching satellites into orbit, JAXA said.
JAXA plans to develop a "homing version" of the Kounotori that will be used to return ISS equipment to Earth, JAXA officials said.
Like the H-2A, the country's mainstay rocket, the H-2B's first and second components are propelled through the reaction of liquefied hydrogen and liquefied oxygen.
Following the decommissioning last year of U.S. space shuttles, the Kounotori has been gaining international attention as a means of transporting large payloads into space, JAXA said.
Regarding the Kounotori: New Kounotori spacecraft to handle multiple tasks (The Yomiuri Shimbun)