The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) ferries propellants, food, water and equipment to the ISS. Once docked, it uses its own engines to correct the station’s orbit, compensating for a regular loss of altitude due to drag and contributes to collision and debris avoidance. At the end of its four-month mission it is filled with waste, and burns up as it heads back into the Earth's atmosphere.
The first ATV, dubbed 'Jules Verne', was launched by an Ariane 5 on 9 March 2008 and performed a perfect docking with the ISS on 3 April 2008. The ATV is thus the first European spacecraft to carry out an automatic rendezvous and docking with a space station. A total of five missions are planned for the period up to 2013.
Under contract to the European Space Agency (ESA), Astrium is industrial prime contractor for the ATV.
