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HTV-5 On Its Way To the ISS
nojayuk writes: There's another launcher delivering cargo to the ISS apart from US and Russian vehicles, and it's Japanese. The fifth Koutonori (White Stork) cargo vehicle was successfully launched today at from pad 2 of the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at Tanegashima south of Tokyo at 11:50:49 UTC, carrying over 5 tonnes of food, spare parts and scientific equipment to the ISS in a pressurised cabin and an external racking system. This is the fifth successful launch in a row for the Japanese H2B launcher. The Koutonoris have carried over 20 tonnes of cargo in total to the ISS, more than double the amount of SpaceX's six successful CRS resupply flights.
Japan's vehicle has the highest payload of any of the current launch systems but it is also a hugely expensive launch system. The cost per launch is around 15 Billion yen, $121m USD. They are currently developing the H3 as the successor to the H2B launch system with the primary target of reducing the cost by half.
The Falcon 9 by comparison has a launch cost of $57 million.
The Falcon 9 has a lift capacity of 13,000kg to LEO vs 16,500 for the H2B.
So it depends what race you are looking at.
JAXA is currently flying its second asteroid material return mission, Hayabusa 2. The first was not a total success but the craft did get to its target and return a capsule to Earth. Number of NASA asteroid material return missions, zero.
Hayabusa 2 is carrying a lander built by the French CNES and three smaller "hopping" landers as well as an IED meant to blow a hole in the asteroid's surface to expose fresh material for inspection and analysis.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com...
There's a lot of difficult science to be done (tm GlaDOS) out in the solar system, we can't expect the US to do all of it.