TOKYO - Japan's unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) finished the final leg of its mission in a blaze of glory on the morning of Nov. 2 Japan Standard Time, burned up by temperatures of 2,000 degrees centigrade as it entered the Earth's atmosphere.

The re-entry concluded Japan's first demonstration mission of its vehicle for supplying the International Space Station (ISS).

HTV Flight Director Koji Yamanaka said, "We have learned a great deal from this mission, such as procedures involved in space cooperation and the fact that we can build a safe spacecraft that can be entered by astronauts in space." He called the fiery disposal of the spacecraft "fun and sad at the same time."

The HTV began its undocking procedure at 12:02 a.m. JST on Oct. 31 with the help of the space station's robotic arm, which disconnected the 16.5-metric-ton cargo ship and pulled it away from the station. The HTV was released at 2:32 a.m., and after three major de-orbit maneuvers, entered the Earth['s atmosphere over New Zealand at 6:26 a.m.

Reports confirm that the thrusters engaged as designed, placing the spacecraft into a controlled tumble/roll to enhance the incineration process, with the last telemetry taken at an altitude of 116 kilometers (72.5 miles).

The remains of the spacecraft, if any, would have dropped into the water around 6:38-6:58 a.m., within the designated area (West Longitude 126 to 141, South Latitude 51 to 52 degrees) in the South Pacific Ocean.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency says the next HTV is likely to be delayed into autumn, not because of any delays with the HTV, but because of the ISS schedule. As the next flight will not carry any special reserve of fuel and batteries, the cargo load will be increased to its full capacity with the upper pressurized compartment holding up to 4.5 metric tons and the middle unpressurized compartment up to 1.5 tons. In the first demonstration flight, each compartment was lightened to 3.6 and 0.9 metric tons respectively. Six more HTVs are scheduled to be launched every year until 2015.

The first HTV was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIB rocket from Tanegashima Space Center on Sept. 11, and connected to the ISS on Sept. 18. The pressurized cargo consisted mainly of food, water and clothing, while the unpressurized cargo contained two scientific instruments - Japan's SMILES (Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb Emission Sounder) and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's HREP (HICO-RAIDS Experiment Payload). These instruments, secured in a drawer, were taken out of the HTV by the station's robotic arm and installed on the outside of Japan's Kibos experiment module Sept. 25. Once installed, the drawer was put back into the HTV as trash. The HTV was connected to the ISS for about 42 days, and was filled with other rubbish from the station before it undocked.

Following the success of the grappling operations for rendezvous and docking of the HTV, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation recently signed a 6 billion yen ($66 million) contract with Orbital Sciences Corporation to supply the Proximity Link System (PLS) components that will guide Orbital's Cygnus Spacecraft for its nine ISS resupply missions scheduled between 2010 and 2014. The contract is one of the largest tying a Japanese company to NASA's space program.

HTV photo: JAXA