ISS: Europe Picks Up Some Slack

With our Shuttle due to be phased out in 2010, with no replacement in sight, the Europeans have come up with technology to keep the International Space Station supplied. This means we won't be ceding ownership to the Russians (at least not right away).

From Earth to the Station: Europe's First Space Cargo Ship - Yahoo! News: "A European cargo ship the size of a double-decker bus is primed for its maiden flight to haul fresh supplies toward the International Space Station (ISS).

Jules Verne, a massive unmanned cargo ship built for the European Space Agency (ESA), is set to launch toward the station late Saturday at 11:03:06 p.m. EST (0403:06 GMT) from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. A modified European Ariane 5 rocket will loft the nearly 21-ton Jules Verne into orbit from its equatorial launch site on the northern coast of South America.
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Jules Verne is the first of a new fleet of unmanned spacecraft, called Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs), to launch fresh supplies to station crews through at least 2015. The 32-foot (10-meter) long cylinder with a diameter of about 14.7 feet (4.5 meters) and a roomy cargo hold for food, clothes, new equipment and rocket fuel for the ISS.

It is the first new spacecraft in nine years to join the flotilla of U.S space shuttles, Russia's manned Soyuz and unmanned Progress spacecraft that make station-bound flights, NASA officials have said.

"The ATV, as a logistics vehicle, carries almost three times the hardware, fuel, water and oxygen that a Russian Progress carries," said NASA's ISS program manager Mike Suffredini. "It is a major contribution to the program."
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Built by France's EADS-Astrium, Jules Verne and its fellow ATV spacecraft are Europe's first spacecraft to launch and rendezvous with a crewed orbital outpost. ESA partner nations have spent 1.3 billion euros ($1.9 billion) developing the spacecraft as part of a barter system to send future European astronauts and experiments to the ISS.

"It's an extremely exciting vehicle for us," said ESA station program manager Alan Thirkettle, adding that the spacecraft has been under development since 1998. "It contains a number of new technologies."

Chief among those new technologies is the ATV's videometers, a visual-based navigation system that relies on lasers to home in on the ISS.

Jules Verne and other ATVs will use a global positioning satellite (GPS) system to maneuver within about 816 feet (249 meters) of an aft docking port on the station's Russian-built Zvezda service module, then activate the videometer to beam laser pulses at a set of reflectors near the berth. By analyzing the light patterns reflected back, the videometer should be able determine precisely how far the ATV is from its docking port.

The spacecraft is also equipped with a secondary, radar-like sensor - called a telegoniometer - to monitor its position, mission managers said.
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Unlike Russia's unmanned Progress ships, which can be remotely guided in by astronauts from a console inside the station, Jules Verne and other ATVs are fully autonomous.

"They cannot drive us in like they can a Russian Progress," Ellwood said. "All they can do is essentially press a red button if they feel we're being unsafe, and send us away."
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Thirkettle said ESA plans to launch five ATVs to the ISS by 2015 in order to secure a six-month slot aboard the ISS for a European astronaut every other year. Astronauts recently delivered Europe's other major contribution, the Columbus laboratory module, to the station last month.

The interior of each ATV can be loaded with up to eight racks worth of equipment for astronauts to retrieve once the spacecraft reaches the ISS. They are also designed to use their rocket engines to boost the station into a higher orbit and transfer new fuel into tanks inside outpost's Russian-built thrusters.

Each unmanned cargo ship is designed to stay docked at the station for about six months, then be filled with trash and other unneeded items for disposal in the Earth's atmosphere. "