Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Europe’s ATV space freighter bids final goodbye to space station

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: February 16, 2015 at 10:55:07 AM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Europe's ATV space freighter bids final goodbye to space station

ATV-5 reentry
15 February 2015

Last ATV reentry leaves legacy for future space exploration
ESA's fifth automated cargo ferry completed its mission to the International Space Station today when it reentered the atmosphere and burned up safely over an uninhabited area of the southern Pacific Ocean.
ATV-5 liftoff on Ariane
The end of the mission as the craft broke up as planned at about 18:04 GMT (19:04 CET) marks the end of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) programme. The programme has served the Station with the most complex space vehicle ever developed in Europe, achieving five launches in six years following its 2008 debut.
ATVs delivered more than 31 500 kg of supplies over the course of their five missions. They boosted the Station to raise its orbit numerous times and similarly moved it out of the way of space debris.
The vehicles demonstrated European mastering of automated docking, a technology that is vital for further space exploration.
Astronauts inside ATV-5
This last ATV, Georges Lemaître, set the record for the heaviest Ariane 5 launch when it climbed into space from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on 29 July 2014.
Before undocking, the Station crew loaded it with waste material, freeing up space on the weightless research centre.
The European cargo ship undocked on 14 February at 13:40 GMT (14:40 CET) and manoeuvred itself into a safe descent trajectory.
ATV-5 approaching Station
ATV was conceived in 1987, when ideas for an international space station to succeed Russia's Mir complex were beginning to surface. In 1994, ESA and Russia discussed the possibility of using the vehicle for a new station. The decision to build it was taken in October 1995 and development began the following year.
The ATV programme was part of a barter arrangement between ESA and its international partners through which ESA pays its share of the running costs of the International Space Station by supplying vital equipment and systems.
The spacecraft formed part of the Station's supply fleet, alongside Russia's Progress and Soyuz, Japan's HII Transfer Vehicle and America's Dragon and Cygnus commercial ferries.
Orion
The knowledge gained by ESA and European industry from designing, building and operating the complex ATV missions has been instrumental for ESA's participation in NASA's Orion spacecraft that will fly astronauts to the Moon and beyond.
ESA's industrial partners are already building the European Service Module, ATV's technical successor, a critical module for Orion that will supply power, air and propulsion during the test flight in 2017.
"It is with a feeling of pride that we look back at our accomplishments on the ATV programme," says Thomas Reiter, Director of Human Spaceflight and Operations .
"We look forward to applying the experience and knowledge we gained from designing, building and operating five ATV spacecraft with excellent results to future exploration missions using the successor European Service Module of the Orion vehicle."

Copyright 2000 - 2015 © European Space Agency. All rights reserved.

Europe's ATV space freighter bids final goodbye to space station
February 14, 2015 by Stephen Clark
The fifth ATV mission — dubbed Georges Lemaitre — approaches the International Space Station before docking Aug. 12. Credit: Oleg Artemyev/Roscosmos
Europe's fifth and final Automated Transfer Vehicle departed the International Space Station for the last time Saturday, closing out one of the European Space Agency's flagship programs as the bus-sized spaceship heads for a destructive re-entry Sunday.
Hooks linking the ATV supply ship to the space station's Russian-built Zvezda service module opened and the cargo carrier backed away from the complex at 1342 GMT (8:42 a.m. EST), receding into darkness as the vehicles flew in a night pass 257 miles over Mongolia.
Distinguished by X-wing shaped solar panels, the 32-foot-long, 14-foot-wide spaceship — about the size of a London double-decker bus — is named for Georges Lemaitre, the Belgian priest who first proposed the Big Bang theory for the formation of the universe.
"The era of European space freighters supplying the International Space Station comes to an end with the undocking of the Georges Lemaitre," said Rob Navias, NASA TV's commentator for the undocking.
The fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle arrived at the space station Aug. 12, delivering about 14,500 pounds of cargo, air, water and fuel after a two-week rendezvous in which the spacecraft tested next-generation laser navigation sensors that could be used by future missions to clean up space junk or dock with an asteroid.
The lab's crew finished loading trash into the spacecraft before closing hatches Friday, installing nearly 2.4 tons of rubbish for disposal.
"With ATV 5, the success story of the most complex spacecraft ever developed and constructed in Europe, which began in 2008, comes to a close," said Francois Auque, head of space systems at Airbus Defense and Space, prime contractor for the ATV program. "But this technology will not burn up with the re-entry of ATV 'Georges Lemaitre.' Instead, it will bring a multitude of new space projects to life."
The 450 million euro ($512 million) mission will end Sunday when the ATV is driven back into Earth's atmosphere for a fiery plunge over the South Pacific Ocean. A pair of de-orbit burns are planned for 1429 GMT (9:29 a.m. EST) and 1726 GMT (12:26 p.m. EST) Sunday, with re-entry expected at 1812 GMT (1:12 p.m. EST).
The supply ship will succumb to heat and intense pressure when it hits the atmosphere, breaking up and spreading a debris field over a stretch of the remote South Pacific between New Zealand and Chile.
And in the meantime @AstroTerry watched #ATV5 depart from the Russian docking compartment window. pic.twitter.com/MLVu5X7hCM
— Sam Cristoforetti (@AstroSamantha) February 14, 2015
NASA and European Space Agency scientists hoped to observe the dynamics of the ATV's re-entry in an experiment later this month. Ground controllers planned to guide the ATV on a trajectory into Earth's atmosphere shallower than usual at night, and airborne observers aboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft, two data recorders aboard the ATV and cameras on the space station would have monitored the re-entry and captured data on the spaceship's break-up.
But a battery in one of the ATV's four power chains failed Feb. 3, and while the spacecraft can still perform its mission normally, ESA officials concerned over the loss of redundancy in the electrical system decided to abort the shallow re-entry experiment. The ATV will now execute a normal steep re-entry profile in daylight Sunday, similar to the trajectories used on the craft's previous missions.
"The increased risk of a second failure in the 13 days of free flight before the (Feb. 27) re-entry, and the impossibility of shortening this phase because of heavy station traffic and other ATV operational constraints, has led ESA to cancel the shallow re-entry," ESA said in a statement.
A European-built infrared camera and communications package will still record imagery and transmit data to scientists via Iridium satellites during re-entry. The camera will burn up, but the communications transmitter is encased in a ceramic heat shield to send the data back to scientists before impacting the ocean.
Scientists and NASA mission planners were interested in the re-entry to collect data on how a large spacecraft like the ATV responds to the intense heat and pressures of re-entry, eventually leading to the vehicle's break-up. The data would have helped officials plan for the eventual destruction of the space station itself, which will be driven into Earth's atmosphere when its useful life is over — an event currently expected in the 2020s.
The space station's re-entry will require careful planning, and maneuvers by several Russian Progress supply ships to lower its orbit and guide the 450-ton complex safely toward the uninhabited South Pacific. Europe's ATV was originally tapped for the task — it could accomplish the re-entry in a single mission — but the ESA cargo craft is being retired with the conclusion of its current flight.
NASA may attempt a destructive shallow re-entry with one of the space station's other logistics vehicles, which are smaller than the ATV but could still provide useful insights into re-entry conditions.
NASA decided remove its own re-entry data recorder from the ATV for possible use on a future mission.
"The ATV team has worked tirelessly for five missions in a row," said Massimo Cislaghi, ESA's ATV 5 mission manager. "While teams are sincerely disappointed not to conduct the planned shallow reentry, the revised plan doesn't alter the program's overall success."
The ATV is the largest spaceship servicing the station since the retirement of the space shuttle, but its capabilities are no longer needed as a mix of U.S., Russian and Japanese cargo carriers deliver supplies, experiments and fuel to the complex.
Billing itself as a research and development agency chartered to work on new technical capabilities — rather than manufacture and fly "copies" of an operational spacecraft — ESA opted to end construction of the Automated Transfer Vehicle to put engineering teams to work on development of a new project building on the cargo ship's success.
ESA developed the ATV and flew the five missions as part of a barter agreement with NASA to pay for Europe's share of the space station's operating costs through 2017.
"The first studies started in the 1980s, so we are 25-to-30 years down the road, and there is a lot of energy, motivation, and competencies in ATV," said Bart Reijnen, head of orbital systems and space exploration at Airbus Defense and Space, in an interview before ATV 5's launch in July 2014. "For all the teams that have been working over such a long time period, it's not easy to say farewell to ATV. You can be sure about that."
With the five ATVs, Europe sent up 31,446 kilograms, or 69,327 pounds, of cargo, fuel, water and air to the space station, according to Thomas Reiter, head of ESA's human exploration and operations directorate.
The missions spent a cumulative 776 days docked to the space station on missions launched in 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
NASA and ESA agreed for Europe to design and build a service module for the first unpiloted test flight of the Orion deep space exploration vehicle beyond Earth orbit in 2018.
The European contribution to the Orion program will cover ESA's share of the space station's costs through 2020, a figure estimated around 450 million euros ($512 million).
"This success has only been possible thanks to the unparalleled European and international cooperation over the last two decades," Auque said in a statement. "This cooperation and the ATV's world leading technology will live on long into the future with the Orion program taking astronauts into Earth's orbit and beyond — a real testament to everyone who worked on this fantastic program."

© 2015 Spaceflight Now Inc.

Europe destroys last space truck to ISS
Paris (AFP) - The European Space Agency (ESA) on Sunday said it had destroyed its last supply ship to the International Space Station, bringing a seven-year venture to a successful close.
The last of five robot delivery vessels that ESA pledged for the US-led ISS project, the Georges Lemaitre, burned up in a suicide plunge into Earth's atmosphere, the agency said.
At the control centre in Toulouse, the end of the project was greeted with emotional scenes, according to an ESA tweet, while NASA sent its congratulations, also via Twitter.
The spaceship had separated from the ISS on Saturday at the end of a six-month mission to bring air, water, food and other essentials to the space station's crew.
Nearly 11 metres (32.5 feet) long and weighing around 20 tonnes at launch, the so-called Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) have been a testbed for innovative technology.
After launch by an Ariane 5 rocket from ESA's base in Kourou, French Guiana, they navigated their way to the ISS by starlight and docked automatically.
During their mission, they were used for storage and habitation, and their onboard thrusters boosted the altitude of the ISS, which is in low Earth orbit and plucked by lingering atmospheric molecules.
View gallery

Handout photo released on July 29, 2014, by the European Space Agency shows an Ariane 5 ES heavy roc …
The ATVs were filled with garbage and human waste for their final trip.
- Emotional scenes -
First launched in March 2008, the five vessels brought up a total of 32 tonnes in resupplies, accounting for ESA's eight-percent share of the ISS's running costs under a barter arrangement.
They were all named after inspirational Europeans in space exploration.
The first, the Jules Verne, was named after the 19th-century French forerunner of science fiction, who wrote "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" and "From the Earth to the Moon."
The following three were named after astronomer Johannes Kepler and physicists Edoardo Amaldi and Albert Einstein. George Lemaitre, a Belgian priest and cosmologist, was father of the "Big Bang" theory of the creation of the Universe.
The cylindrical ATV design is to be adapted to become the service module of NASA's Orion spacecraft, a rocket-and-capsule successor to the US space shuttle.
Sunday's operation previously been set for February 27.
Flight engineers had hoped to test a long and shallow trajectory to see if this would aid planning for the ISS's own destruction, sketched for around 2024.
The ISS has a mass of around 420 tonnes. Its size raises the challenge of destroying as much of the structure as possible to diminish the amount of debris reaching Earth's surface.
The February 27 experiment was scrapped when a fault developed in one of the ATV's four power sources.
The end of the ATV programme means that the ISS's suppliers are Russia's Progress freighter, Japan's HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV) and the Dragon and Cygnus craft built by two NASA-contracted private US firms, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences.
Orbital Sciences suffered a major rocket failure in October, forcing an end to its supply missions until further notice.

Copyright © 2015 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.

Europe's Last ATV Space Station Freighter Makes Fleet's Final Re-Entry
by Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com Editor | February 15, 2015 02:37pm ET

Artist's concept of the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle-5 (ATV-5), named "Georges Lemaitre," coming back to Earth for a destructive re-entry on Feb. 15, 2015.
Credit: ESA–D. Ducros, 2014 View full size image
In the end, Europe's fifth and final space station freighter went out in more of a fiery blaze than with the "big bang" of its namesake.
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) 5, christened the "Georges Lemaître" after the Belgian priest and astronomer whose work led to the Big Bang theory of the universe's origin, was intentionally destroyed as it plunged back into the Earth's atmosphere on Sunday (Feb. 15).
The unmanned spacecraft, the last of its type, came to its end at 1:11 p.m. EST (1811 GMT). [Europe's ATV-5 Space Cargo Ship Mission in Pictures]
The re-entry came a day after the ATV left the International Space Station (ISS), where it had been docked since last August. Launched on July 29, 2014, ATV-5 logged a total of 186 days in space.
Unpacked of its 7 tons of supplies and reloaded with 2.4 tons of trash, the "Georges Lemaître" fulfilled its mission, including using its thrusters to readjust the altitude of the station to compensate for atmospheric drag, re-boosting to avoid debris and, in a first for an ATV last month, lowering the outpost's orbit in preparation for the arrival of the next cargo spacecraft.
"Final view ATV-5 'Georges Lemaître' entering Earth's atmosphere. It was surprising to see how high the smoke trail was," NASA astronaut Terry Virts shared on Twitter Feb. 15, 2015, from the International Space Station.
Credit: NASA/Terry Virts
View full size image
Future visiting vehicles will not include the European ATV. Russian Progress vehicles, U.S. commercial Cygnus and Dragon freighters and Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) will resupply the space station going forward.
"The five ATVs have paid ESA's obligations in the ISS program until 2017," Nico Dettmann, head of ESA's space transportation department, said in statement. "It has been decided to discontinue ATV, but to develop the MPCV-ESM (European Service Module) for NASA to compensate for ESA's ISS obligations until 2020."
The service module will provide propulsion and electrical power to NASA's Orion crew capsule on its missions into deep space. In return for developing the ESM, European astronauts will continue to live onboard the station to work on European experiments in ESA's Columbus lab through the end of the decade.
"This decision [offers] a European exploration perspective beyond low-Earth orbit, while building on ATV heritage," he said.
After the space shuttle, the 34-foot-long (10.3 meters) ATV was the largest spacecraft to resupply the space station, with enough volume to hold a double-decker bus. Powered by four solar panels in an "X-Wing" configuration, the ATV used a laser imaging system to autonomously dock to the orbiting outpost's Russian Zvezda service module.
The first ATV, which flew from March to September 2008, was named for French science fiction author Jules Verne. Nearly three years later, the "Johannes Kepler" lifted off in honor of the German astronomer.
ATV-3, which flew to the station in 2012, was christened for Edoardo Amaldi, the "father of Italian space research" and one of the few scientists who advocated for what later became the European Space Agency.
The fourth ATV, launched in June 2013, was named after the genius Albert Einstein, who is perhaps best known for his theories concerning relativity.
In total, the five ATVs spent a total of 776 days docked to the space station and delivered 70,550 lbs. (32,000 kilograms) of cargo and science experiments.
In its final act, the Georges Lemaître was set to record its own demise. Packed among the refuse was ESA's Break-Up Camera, a special infrared device designed to capture still frames as the vehicle was destroyed during re-entry.
The camera itself was not expected to survive, but its communications transmitter, encased inside a ceramic sphere, was supposed to relay the data via satellite before impacting the Pacific Ocean somewhere between New Zealand and Chile. If everything worked as planned, ESA expects the images to be released after their analysis in the next two weeks.
Click through to collectSPACE to see a time lapse of ESA's ATV-5 leaving the International Space Station.

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ESA's ATV space ferry goes out in a blaze of glory
Amy Tyndall, News reporter
12 February 2015, 22:03 UTC, Updated 15 February 2015, 20:24 UTC
Sen—At 13:42 UTC on Feb. 14, 2015, ESA's fifth and final Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-5), also known as Georges Lemaître, kissed goodbye to the International Space Station (ISS) and was sent on a path down to Earth in a controlled re-entry.
The spacecraft broke up in the atmosphere, marking the end of seven years of service by ESA's remarkable ATV vehicles, which so impressed NASA that their technology will help drive the agency's new Orion spaceship.
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sasha Samokutyaev monitored ATV-5's departure from the moment it pulled away from the ISS yesterday, joined by ground teams from ESA and the French space agency CNES based at the ATV Control Centre in Toulouse, France.
Today's re-entry activities for the operations teams kicked off at 11:29 UTC, and two deorbit burns (DEO) started the re-entry procedure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ztXdurBfZWo
Timelapse made up of images taken by astronauts on board the ISS of ATV-5 undocking and moving away towards Earth yesterday. Video credit: NASA
DEO1 was carried out at 14:29 UTC as the ATV fired its thrusters for almost 14 minutes, reducing its speed by 186 km/h and lowering its altitude by 150 km. ATV-5's final orbit across the globe then began at 17:14 UTC and was visible in the twilight sky over parts of eastern Europe.
As DEO2 started at 17:26 UTC over the Caspian Sea, the control room in Toulouse became more crowded as scientists and engineers involved in the ATV project started to gather to witness its final moments. The manoeuvre, which lasted approxmately 23 minutes, reduced the spacecraft's speed by almost 323 km/h.
At 17:53 UTC, the last command from the Control Centre was sent to ATV-5, getting it to briefly fire its thrusters to allow Earth's atmosphere to grab the spacecraft as it reached an alititude of approximately 200 km. The spacecraft was brought into a tumbling freefall safely above the Pacific ocean in what the ATV team termed "The Big Dive". Contact was finally lost at 18:11 UTC, marking the end of an era for all involved.
What made this standard ATV re-entry unique, apart from being the last of this generation, was the special infrared camera that was installed by Christoforetti to capture front-seat views of the space ferry's interior as it broke apart.
"The battery-powered camera will be trained on the Automated Transfer Vehicle's forward hatch, and will record the shifting temperatures of the scene before it," project leader Neil Murray explained in a statement on the ESA website last week.
"Recording at 10 frames per second, it should show us the last 10 seconds or so of the ATV. We don't know exactly what we might see—might there be gradual deformations appearing as the spacecraft comes under strain, or will everything come apart extremely quickly.
"Whatever results we get back will be shared by our teams, and should tell us a lot about the eventual re-entry of the International Space Station as well as spacecraft re-entry in general."
The camera planted inside will not have survived the re-entry; however, it was linked to a "SatCom" sphere enveloped in a ceramic thermal protection system that offers shielding against extreme temperatures of up to 1500°C as it hurtled through the atmosphere at speed.
In this way, the SatCom acts as the "black box" of the ATV, transmitting all of its stored data to nearby Iridium communication satellites once it separates away from the disintegrating spacecraft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OhBw5yaR_SU
ATV-1 Jules Verne burning up as it undergoes a planned re-entry into the atmosphere of our planet. On Sept.29 2008, the supply vehicle broke up 75km above the Earth's surface at 14:58 CEST, with the remaining fragments falling into an uninhabited area of the Pacific ocean some 12 minutes later. Credit: ESA/NASA
Some signal loss is to be expected from the camera feed when it is examined due to intereference from the hot atmospheric plasma blocking radio signals. It is hoped that the omnidirectional antenna attached to the SatCom was able to exploit any gap in the intereference to continue transmission, but if not the signal will have been picked up again after the plasma had cleared—expected to occur at an altitude below 40 km.
All ATVs, built by Airbus Defence & Space, have ended their supply missions the same way—by being filled with waste from the ISS and sent to be destroyed over an uninhabited area of the Pacific ocean.
Not only did Misson Control in Houston and Moscow follow the events as they happened via TV monitor, but NASA will also be showing hats-off appreciation for the years of reliable service from ESA's ATVs by incorporating the spacecraft's advanced and intelligent electronics system into the Orion module, ensuring that the legacy of this space station supply ferry lives on.

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