Japan launched a rocket with its first unmanned transportation vehicle to supply the International Space Station (ISS), said reports reaching Tokyo from Tanegashima, Kagoshima Prefecture.

Japan's space agency JAXA's H-2B rocket, carrying Japan's first unmanned H-2 Transfer Vehicle, blasts off from Tanegashima Space Center on Japan's southern island of Tanegashima September 11, 2009. The H-2 Transfer Vehicle, known as HTV, which is expected to reach the International space station next week, is loaded with more than 3 tons of food, equipment, supplies and experiments, including two Earth-monitoring devices that will help track climate change.[Xinhua]

The newly developed H-2B No. 1 rocket blast off from the Tanegashima Space Center shortly after 2 a.m. local time (1700 GMT Thursday) and the transportation vehicle, called HTV, was separated from the rocket 15 minutes later, said the reports, citing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA. And it went into the planned orbit successfully.

The HTV will send some 4.5 tons of supplies, including freeze-dried food, bread, clothes as well as SMILES stratospheric observation equipment, to Japan's Kibo laboratory module on the ISS.

The HTV is expected to play a crucial role in transporting supplies to the space station along with Russian and European supply vehicles after US space shuttles are decommissioned in 2011.