14 DAY TRIAL // The Japanese HTV-4 cargo vessel is on approach towards the ISS and should dock with the International Space Station this Friday. In the meantime though, it will be chasing it across the sky as it gains altitude and gets closer.
And, if you're lucky and know where to look, you can watch this chase unfold in the evening or morning sky for the next few days.
HTV-4 is carrying supplies to the six astronauts aboard the space station, food, spare parts, new experiments, and even a talking robot designed in Japan called Kirobo.
The ISS is one of the brightest objects in the sky, for a few minutes at certain times, and the unmanned ship is easily visible with the naked eye, even in poor conditions like bright cities.
The ISS and several other satellites can be seen in the night sky, if you happen to look at just the right time. This happens either in the evening, within two hours or so of the sunset. For a craft to be visible, it has to be lit by the sun, but the Earth has to be dark beneath it. This can happen early in the morning as well.
To track the ISS, you can use the simple Spot the Station site created by NASA. All you have to do is provide a location and you can sign up to email notifications. To spot HTV-4, you have several tools at your disposal.
The Heavens Above website can provide you with the times when the craft is visible for your location and all the data you need to spot it. Also useful is N2YO.com which offers real-time tracking. Both sites can help you track not only the ISS or whatever crafts are headed towards it, but also quite a few satellites as well.