Jonathan McDowellVarmennettu tili

The next launch is Japan's Kounotori-6 (HTV-6) cargo ship flight to the ISS, due for Dec 9

This will be the first of several HTV flights to support replacing the Station's external Ni-H2 batteries with new Li-ion ones

The ISS truss has 4 IEAs (Integrated Equipment Assemblies) - in the S4, P4, S6 and P6 segments. Each has 12 of the old battery ORUs

Oops acronym: ORU = Orbital Replacement Unit, a package that can be slotted in quasi-easily by spacewalkers or robots.

On the upcoming HTV6 mission 6 of the 12 old battery ORUs on S4 will be replaced by new ones and brought back down.

The other 6 will be turned off and 'adapter plate ORUs' will be stuck inbetween them and the truss.

Presumably the old ones that stay up can be used as spares. The 6 new ones have the capacity to replace all 12 old ones.