RSS feed
ATV Blog
4 April Right after the Jules Verne docked to the ISS yesterday afternoon, the 'post-docking' operations were efficiently executed and only a few hours later the ATV was ready for mission operation. The ISS crew undertook the necessary operations and opened the hatch between the stattion and the ATV today at around midday, as always under the supervision of the control cebtre in Toulouse. Now, Astrium's two major contributions to the ISS are completely connected (Columbus on the front side, the ATV on the aft) and on could now 'fly' from module to another. In the coming weeks, the ATV systems will be checked and pivotal operations such as the transfer of propellants, gas and dry cargo, as well as the 'reboost' function, will be carried out.
1 April Yesterday was the last ATV Jules Verne demonstration day before the 'real' docking to the ISS on 3 April. Basically the idea was to approach the station down to 12 meters via a series of holding points at 3.5 kilometers, 280 meters and 20 metres from the station, combined with demonstration of ATV capabilities (to hold a fixed position vis-à-vis the station on crew request, to retreat to the previous hold point or to escape quickly from the station in contingency conditions). The complete programme was executed exactly on time, without anomalies and with excellent performances of the system (station keeping at 12 metres from the station was held for a couple of minutes with a precision of a few centimetres). One has to remember that this is the first time in space histroy that a rendez-vous is being performed sucessfully by an automated vehicle using relative GPS and optical naviagtion sensors. In a certain sense, Jules Verne has already performed two successful rendez-vous (at 20 and 12 metres) giving the ISS partners (NASA, Roskosmos) great confidence for the final docking. On a personal point of view, I will certainly remember for ever the time when the Jules Verne was still in eclipse (we could only see the three lights called Visual Ranging Cues flashing in the dark) and suddenly appearing in the sunlight in the middle of the control screens (as if emerging in the early morning from clouds).
Go Jules Verne for docking!
14 March Five days after being launched from Kourou, the ATV Jules Verne was deliberately submitted today to a very unusual maneuver for a space vehicle. While still far away from the station, its capability to execute a collision avoidance maneuver (CAM) was demonstrated this morning as a necessary pre-requisite to be allowed to rendezvous with the ISS. Exactly as planned, the maneuver ended up in survival mode (even though seeing its bird in survival is not really what you would prefer!) from which the ATV successfully exited in an automated way. The bird is in perfect condition and is about to enter a parking orbit for a couple of days, before starting the final demonstrations and eventually dock to the station in a bit more than 3 weeks from now.
March, 11th The Jules Verne has been flying now for two days, and has already covered more than 1.5 million kilometres! The slight off-nominal situation discovered on the propulsion subsystem just after separation from Ariane 5 and which caused the on-board FDIR (Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery system) to discard one propulsion chain out of four is now understood. The discarded propulsion chain was reintegrated on 10 March, all attitude control thrusters have been activated and two main boosts were performed today. The vehicle is now in its nominal configuration and all the on-board systems are performing even better than predicted. Heading for the station now (we will nevertheless park a bit to wait for the space shuttle, sucessfully launched today, to dedock from the ISS in about two weeks!).
March, 7th Today is D-1 (as a matter of fact, D0 is March, 8th even though the launch will take very early on March 9th) and Jules Verne was readied for the transfer to the launch pad to occur in the next hours. Here in Kourou, the ambiance is like for a family event like a wedding, when friends from all around the world (all European countires, Russia, the United States, Japan, Canada…) gather in a specific place to celebrate a unique event and will go back in a few hours. Launch is now confirmed on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 1:03:04 Kourou time / 4:03:04 GMT and 5:03:04 central European Time.
March, 5th Today was the last major review at ATV flight segment level before the launch. The Launch Readiness Review (LRR), chaired by ESA and with participation from the International Space Station (ISS) partners (i.e. NASA and RSC Energya), took place in Kourou and sucessfully concluded on a 'go for launch'. This means basically not only that the ATV system is qualified and the Jules Verne model is accepted by ESA for its maiden flight, but also that the ISS partners are ready to receive the vehicle in a few weeks. In parallel, the Jules Verne continues to be carefully babysat by the Astrium team. No significant activities (besides battery charge complement and regular monitoring) are planned until start of the countdown preparation at D-2. Looking good!
March, 4th A last inspection on the separation system between the Ariane 5 launcher and the ATV highlighted an anomaly in the routing of a bonding strap, quickly corrected on 3 March after a swift fairing removal. ATV Jules Verne has now been back under its protective cocoon since yesterday and all further tests were sucessfully executed. The whole team is enjoying these last days at the Final Assembly Building, babysitting our bird before its roll-out on Friday to the launch pad. Batteries are charged on a regular basis, while the thermal condition of the vehicle is carefully managed.
February, 29th Exactly one week before the scheduled launch date, we started this afternoon the general rehearsal with the launcher, the ATV itself, the Kourou space port entities including the down range stations. The idea is to run the countdown procedure in real time and with the exact flight configuration, up to a simulated launch tomorrow morning at 1:23 am (ie. exactly the same timing than the one foreseen for the launch…but one week earlier). No better way to train and feel how close we are from Day 0. Next time we will run the countdown procedure will be for good!
February, 28th The ATV Jules Verne is quiet under the fairing, being 'babysat' on a regular basis by the launch campaign team: extra power every two days to recharge the batteries, wake-up every day for regular check and power-off, high flow of clean, cooled air …
The launcher is being loaded with propellant, starting with the SCA (attitude control system) this afternoon, followed by the EPS propellant tanks in the next two days. The downrange station system (pretty complex since it includes a specially equipped ship already positionned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean since a few days, two radar tracking stations in Europe and telemetry stations in the Azores, Australia, New Zealand, etc) is now ready. Tomorrow night is the dress rehearsal - the last general operational milestone before the launch.
February, 25th Today was quite an emotional day for the Astrium ATV team. The long fairing was installed atop the Ariane 5 launcher, meaning that from now on the next human beings to see the ATV Jules Verne will be the astronauts on-board the International Space Station in a little over one month from now. One could really tell that for those men and women who have spend years of the professional life, including long nights and sometimes week-ends, it was really heart breaking to see their 'baby' being finally encapsulated, but also a real pride to have reached such an important milestone after more than 10 years of hard work, and sometimes doubt, but in any case enthusiasm. On track for launch!