Jules Verne successfully docks with Space Station: First ESA ATV at ISS

by William Atkins

Friday, 04 April 2008

Page 1 of 2 ! At approximately 10:45 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, the European Space Agency (ESA) made its first-time ever docking to the International Space Station (ISS) with its new automated transfer vehicle (ATV). Welcome Aboard! The perfectly executed docking was called "textbook" by a NASA commentator on NASA TV. The unmanned ESA Jules Verne (ATV-001) started about two miles (3.2 kilometers) away from the ISS at about two hours before actual docking. The cargo resupply spacecraft docked to the aft port of the Russian Zvezda Service Module. At approximately 10:55, flight controllers confirmed a hard dock of the ATV to the space station. The spacecraft is named after the nineteen-century French science fiction author Jules Verne (1828-1905). Verne wrote such novels as “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea,” “Around the World in Eighty Days,” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” Another novel written by Verne, “From the Earth to the Moon, is onboard the Jules Verne ATV, and will be presented to the ISS Expedition 16 crew. The spacecraft was launched on March 9, 2008, from an Ariane 5ES launch vehicle, for its mission to re-supply the three member Expedition 16 crew of the Space Station with water, air, dry cargo, and propellant. It was launched from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana at 04:03:04 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The ISS Expedition 16 crew consists of: NASA astronaut and ISS commander Peggy Whitson; RSA cosmonaut and ISS flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko; and NASA astronaut and ISS flight engineer Garrett Reisman. (RSA stands for the Russian Federation Space Agency.) Further information about the Jules Verne mission follows. << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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