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The European Space Agency’s fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) built by Thales Alenia Space.
Image credit: Thales Alenia Space
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[Satellite TODAY 06-06-13] Thales Alenia Space has announced the successful liftoff of the European Space Agency’s fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), named after famous scientist Albert Einstein. Arianespace performed the launch from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The unmanned ATV cargo spacecraft will automatically dock with the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver more than two tons of cargo including experimental equipment, spare parts, food, air and water supplies for the astronauts aboard. The pressurized Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC) module was built by Thales Alenia Space. Using control and monitoring systems in the Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC) service module, also developed by Thales Alenia Space, the ISS crew will carry out the ATV cargo transfer operations.
The company recently announced that it had completed integration of the ICC for the fifth ATV, named after Belgian scientist Georges Lemaître. The module has already been shipped from Thales Alenia Space’s integration center in Turin, Italy, to Astrium in Bremen, Germany. After undergoing a series of tests, ATV5 will be shipped to the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana, for a launch to the International Space Station slated for 2014.
As the operating life of the International Space Station has been extended to 2020, Thales Alenia Space has also started to build nine Pressurized Cargo Modules (PCM) for the Cygnus spacecraft, which will transport cargo to the ISS as part of Orbital Sciences’ (CRS) contract awarded by NASA. Additionally, Thales Alenia Space was chosen to participate in the construction of NASA’s new Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), Orion.
