Europe will close an important chapter in its space flight history Tuesday, launching the fifth and final robot ship it had pledged for lifeline deliveries to the International Space Station.
The 20-tonne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) dubbed Georges Lemaitre, the size of a double-decker bus, is set to blast off from South America with fuel, water, oxygen, food, clean clothes and 50 kilogrammes (110 pounds) of coffee for six Earth-orbiting astronauts. Named for the father of the Big Bang theory of how the Universe was formed, the heaviest ATV yet follows on the hi-tech trail of four others sent into space by the European Space Agency (ESA) since 2008.
The 10-metre (33-foot) pressurised capsule will be the heaviest ATV yet launched by an Ariane 5 ES rocket. It is scheduled to blast off from Kourou in French Guiana at 8:44 pm (2344 GMT) Tuesday. The craft will carry nearly 6.6 tonnes of supplies for the orbital outpost and its occupants, including 850 litres of drinking water--the most ever, and three tonnes of fuel. Some of the fuel will be used to boost the ISS--falling towards Earth at a rate of about 100 metres (330 feet) per day due to atmospheric resistance--to higher altitudes with the ATV's onboard engines.
On August 12, it should dock with the station orbiting Earth at an altitude about 400 km (250 miles) and a speed of 28,800 km (18,000 miles) per hour. At the end of its mission, the craft will undock filled with tonnes of garbage and human waste, de-orbit and self-destruct upon entry into the atmosphere over an uninhabited zone of the South Pacific.
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Space Station Cargo Ship Activities to Air on NASA TV.
NASA Television will broadcast live the departure of an unpiloted Russian cargo spacecraft from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, July 21, and the launch and docking of its replacement Wednesday, July 23.
ISS Progress 55 arrived at the orbiting laboratory in April and will undock from the space station's Pirs docking compartment at 5:44 p.m. EDT on July 21. NASA TV coverage of the undocking will begin at 5:30 p.m. The cargo ship will undergo several days of engineering tests in orbit before being commanded to reenter Earth's atmosphere during which it will burn up over the Pacific Ocean.
On July 23, the ISS Progress 56 resupply ship will launch at 5:44 p.m. from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (3:44 a.m. local time on July 24), with about 5,700 pounds of food, fuel and supplies for the station's Expedition 40 crew. Launch coverage begins at 5:30 p.m. Progress 56 will make its four-orbit, six-hour trip to the space station and dock at 11:30 p.m. Docking coverage will begin at 11 p.m.
(Score: 4, Informative) by toygeek on Monday July 28 2014, @03:42AM
What's next? Are we going to let them starve up there? Oh, here it is, in TFA:
The ATV's cargo delivery tasks will be taken over by Russia's Progress shuttle and the Dragon and Cygnus craft built by two NASA-contracted private American firms—Space X and Orbital Sciences.
There is no Sig. Okay, maybe a short one. http://miscdotgeek.com
(Score: 3, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Monday July 28 2014, @07:42PM
ATV hauls about 2x the mass of Cygnus Enhanced and half of Dragon's payload is unpressurized, really Japan's HTV is the only thing close to ATV. It also launches less often like ATV did, so it looks like HTV is taking over for ATV. Dragon, Progress, and Cygnus will continue doing the "regular" resupplies.
It is unclear what Dragon 2's payload will be, but presumably it will be bigger than Dragon 1. Presumably it will be more for delivering people than cargo.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Monday July 28 2014, @02:22PM
That poor ES (poor as in unfortunate). I was going to post that they built the ES but no one came, but I looked into it and they somehow snagged a bunch of Galileo launches so this really isn't the end for the ES after all.
The old G series used storable hypergolic second stage and the very commercially successful EC series went cryo for their second stage while tuning up the 1st stage a little bit, and the ES is kind of their love child where they stuck a hypergolic G series second stage on top of the tuned up, improved EC's first stage. Not a bad idea, all things considered, other than nobody wants to buy one other than the ISS resupply missions. I donno why. Oh and I was surprised to learn today they snagged a Galileo contract so this isn't the end after all.
So I donno if its fair to call this the funeral of the ES series booster if they have somehow managed to snag precisely one more launch contract. The ES will rise again... well, exactly one more contract, anyway.
The Galileo mods to the ES turn the thing into what amounts to a MIRV, well other than the hopefully not re-entering part LOL. If they're successful the galileo mission will boost a bunch of satellites all at one time and then vomit them forth into different orbits, which should be cool if its successful. That would make an interesting followup story, no matter if it works or not. It will kinda like 2G1C except it'll be like "4 satellites 1 booster"... if it works. The cool part isn't just hauling up 4 sats at a time, but supposedly they're getting tossed into 4 different orbits, now how that works is a mystery to me, assuming its not something super boring like merely separate upper stages.