The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has announced that the launch window for its Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIB launcher and its H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) payload will open at 0204h Japan Standard Time (1204h GMT) on 11 September. The launch of the HTV is important to the future of the International Space Station (ISS). Without NASA’s Space Shuttle the HTV will be crucial to operating a viable ISS crew of six that can conduct plenty of science. What makes the 11 September (couldn’t they have picked a less forbidding date?) launch so risky is that it will be the H-IIB’s first flight or as JAXA puts it, “test flight”. One senior ESA ISS official told Hyperbola that was “brave”. Shuttle may yet get a reprieve
