Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, October 26 (Reporter Qian Zheng) Japan's new generation cargo spacecraft HTV-X was launched for the first time on the 26th, sending food, experimental equipment and other materials to the International Space Station.

Live footage from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) showed that at 9:00 that day (8:00 Beijing time), an H3 rocket carrying the HTV-X1 spacecraft was launched from the large rocket launch site at Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. About 14 minutes after launch, the rocket sent the spacecraft into a predetermined elliptical orbit.

According to JAXA, the spacecraft will then automatically fly to the International Space Station and connect with the space station after about 4 days. During the connection, astronauts will take the material taken from the spacecraft to the International Space Station, load the waste generated by the space station into the spacecraft, and install a small exposure experimental platform sent by the spacecraft outside the Japanese Hope experimental cabin at the space station.

As planned, the spacecraft will be in orbit for about three months after the decommissioning of the space station to carry out technical verification tasks, including the release of a small satellite at an altitude of about 500 kilometers, orbital verification of lightweight flat antennas and the next generation of space solar cells.

The HTV-X unmanned cargo spacecraft has a total length of about 8 meters and a diameter of about 4.4 meters, and can transport approximately 6 tons of goods into near-Earth orbit.The spacecraft is a successor to the Japanese "Han" cargo spacecraft, which can carry experimental samples that require low temperature preservation, and can still fly in orbit for a maximum of one and a half years after leaving the space station, and can be used as a space experimental platform.