Takeoff should occur in less than two weeks, experts say

Mar 1, 2012 08:33 GMT  ·  By

Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) say that the third Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-3), called Edoardo Amaldi, is now ready for launch. The unmanned resupply capsule is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) later this month.

Current plans call for ATV-3 to launch aboard an Ariane 5 heavy-lift delivery system, from the Kourou Spaceport, in French Guiana, South America. ESA is currently aiming for March 9 as a possible date. A launch window opens at 10:05 GMT (11:05 CET).

Unlike the American space shuttles, which only needed a couple of days to track down the space lab in orbit, the European cargo capsules take a few more days to do that. The difference is generated by the positions of the Kourou facility and the NASA Kennedy Space Center with respect to the Equator.

Edoardo Amaldi is the organization's third ATV. The first one was called Jules Verne, and conducted its resupply run in March 2008. The second one was called Johannes Kepler, and it flew to orbit in February 2011. Both missions went on without a hitch.

Unlike the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-2), the European ATVs are capable of docking to the ISS on their own. They also boast incredibly precise navigation systems and flight software.

Their capabilities are further augmented by the addition of a redundant collision-avoidance system. The latter has its own power supplies, control and dedicated thrusters, European officials explain. A fully-loaded ATV weighs about 20 tons, and represents the heaviest payload that ESA ever put into orbit.

“ATV-3 is named after the Italian physicist […] Edoardo Amaldi. A founding father of the European Space Research Organization and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Amaldi is famous for being part of the group that discovered slow neutrons,” and ESA press release explains.

“This third vessel in the ATV series is the first to have been processed and launched within the target rate of one per year. This marks the start of ATV as an annual production-line supply vehicle for the Space Station, positioning Europe as an essential partner in operating the orbital outpost,” the statement adds.

Next year will see the launch of ATV-4, called Albert Einstein. In 2014, ESA will launch ATV-5, a spacecraft named after Georges Lemaître, the scientist who first proposed the theory of cosmic inflation, back in 1927.