Succesfull launch of Jules Verne ATV

The 181th launch of Arianne 5 spacecraft occured about an hour ago. It
succesfully put into orbit the Jules Verne ATV.

(the 181 number was mentioned by a commentator on the ESA TV live feed).


It was mentioned that the plan was to have an ATV launch every 18 months.

Docking with ISS in early April after the shuttle has left.

ATV is 20 tonnes. Columbus was 12 tonnes.

Europe has now switched from being a theoretical partner of the ISS to
an important one with functional contributions. (Columbus and now ATV)

12-mar : test of its emergency "stop" systems.
29-mar : approaches to 3500 m from ISS.
01-apr : docking to ISS.

John Doe wrote:

Europe has now switched from being a theoretical partner of the ISS to
an important one with functional contributions. (Columbus and now ATV)

Let's wait to declare ATV a success until it actually succeeds.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
John Doe wrote:

Europe has now switched from being a theoretical partner of the ISS to
an important one with functional contributions. (Columbus and now ATV)

Let's wait to declare ATV a success until it actually succeeds.

Well, Derek... The _launch_ was, as the subject line says, successful (and
bloody quick, if you ask me - the bugger got away from the pad double
quick!)

"Alan Erskine" wrote:

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
John Doe wrote:

Europe has now switched from being a theoretical partner of the ISS to
an important one with functional contributions. (Columbus and now ATV)

Let's wait to declare ATV a success until it actually succeeds.

Well, Derek... The _launch_ was, as the subject line says, successful (and
bloody quick, if you ask me - the bugger got away from the pad double
quick!)

Certainly. But the ATV is not yet, as the text implies, a functional
contribution to the ISS.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:46:08 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:


Well, Derek... The _launch_ was, as the subject line says, successful (and
bloody quick, if you ask me - the bugger got away from the pad double
quick!)

Although that was one of the least photogenic launches in history!
What a shame that nobody could see a damned thing.

Brian

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:39:32 GMT, (Derek Lyons)
wrote:


Certainly. But the ATV is not yet, as the text implies, a functional
contribution to the ISS.

And now its in trouble. Electronics glitch. All maneuvers on hold.

Brian

And now its in trouble. Electronics glitch. All maneuvers on hold.

Probably a bit of a leap to call it "in trouble", although time will
tell. There is some kind of problem (not yet clear how bad) on one of
the four propulsion chains (sort of sounds like a propellant/helium
leak, but they need to do more debugging before we could really say).
The craft needs three of the four to work. So if the one which is
having problems is unavailable, they'd be without a backup.

http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v181/080309prop.html

In the spin control department, there is the quote:

"We can simulate until the cows come home, but this is the first
opportunity the control team has to work a real off-nominal
situation," Thirkettle said

On 09 Mar 2008 23:20:51 -0400, Jim Kingdon wrote:

And now its in trouble. Electronics glitch. All maneuvers on hold.

Probably a bit of a leap to call it "in trouble", although time will
tell. There is some kind of problem (not yet clear how bad) on one of
the four propulsion chains (sort of sounds like a propellant/helium
leak, but they need to do more debugging before we could really say).
The craft needs three of the four to work. So if the one which is
having problems is unavailable, they'd be without a backup.

And that's the trouble. If they don't recover the redundancy, it is
questionable that they or the partners will let Jules Verne get
anywhere near the Space Station.

Brian

Brian Thorn wrote:

And that's the trouble. If they don't recover the redundancy, it is
questionable that they or the partners will let Jules Verne get
anywhere near the Space Station.

I assume there are flight rules already written for this. If the
remaining ones perform flawlessly during the next few weeks while ATV is
putzing around in space (waiting for shuttle to leave station), I could
see arguments that the remaining systems are reliable enough to allow
docking.

Out of curiousity, would it cost the Shuttle much fuel to get to ATV
before going to the station ? (perhaps they could EVA with a hammer and
give ATV a good kick to fix the glitch ? :-)

Could the Shuttle undock from ISS at a good time so it could then lower
its orbit at the right time to be in vicinity of ATV ? Would the fuel
costs then be quite minimal ?

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:08:22 -0400, John Doe wrote:

And that's the trouble. If they don't recover the redundancy, it is
questionable that they or the partners will let Jules Verne get
anywhere near the Space Station.

I assume there are flight rules already written for this.

On a routine flight, maybe. But this is a test flight and ATV has
never attempted proximity ops (that's what the Demo Days are for)
nevermind proximity ops with suspect electronics. There's going to be
a serious debate about continuing with ISS docking if they don't have
a fully healthy ATV.

Out of curiousity, would it cost the Shuttle much fuel to get to ATV
before going to the station ? (perhaps they could EVA with a hammer and
give ATV a good kick to fix the glitch ? :-)

They could probably arrange something, but it wouldn't be on this
flight. ATV wasn't designed for Shuttle or EVA servicing, so there
probably won't be much they could do even if they train astronauts for
the job.

We're not there yet, though. They might recover the redundancy.
There's plenty of time.

Brian