CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - An unmanned H-2B rocket blasted off from Tanegashima island in southern Japan on Friday to send a cargo ship to the International Space Station, a NASA TV broadcast showed. The launch was successful as "the satellite was removed from the rocket" and put into the planned orbit about 15 minutes after the liftoff, JAXA spokesman Nobuyoshi Fujimoto on Tanegashima told AFP. The freighter, which is also known as Kounotori 6 (after the Japanese word for "white stork"), is scheduled to arrive at the ISS early Tuesday morning (Dec. 13). (Image credit: NASA TV)

"Also aboard the re-supply vehicle are six new lithium-ion batteries and adapter plates that will replace the nickel-hydrogen batteries currently used on the station to store electrical energy generated by the station's solar arrays," NASA officials wrote in a statement. Tech billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX is recovering from a launch pad explosion on Sept. 1 that destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket and a $200 million Israeli communications satellite.
JAXA launches the unmanned cargo spacecraft Kounotori 6, also known as HTV-6, from the Tanegashima Space Center to resupply the International Space Station.