European Space Agency Launches New Orbital Supply Ship

erik.martino brings us a story about the European Space Agency's successful launch of a new type of cargo ship to resupply the ISS. The first Automated Transport Vehicle (ATV), named after Jules Verne, is the "very first spacecraft in the world designed to conduct automated docking in full compliance with the very tight safety constraints imposed by human spaceflight operations." Among other things, it carries water, oxygen, and propellant to help boost the ISS to a higher orbit. We recently discussed NASA's need for a new cargo transport system. Quoting: "Beyond Jules Verne, ESA has already contracted industry to produce four more ATVs to be flown through to 2015. With both ESA's ATV and Russia's Progress, the ISS will be able to rely on two independent servicing systems to ensure its operations after the retirement of the US space shuttle in 2010. It incorporates a 45-m3 pressurised module, derived from the Columbus pressure shell, and a Russian-built docking system, similar to those used on Soyuz manned ferries and on the Progress re-supply ship. About three times larger than its Russian counterpart, it can also deliver about three times more cargo."

Comments

Non-reusable vehicles

[l2718]

Isn't it sad that 50 years into the space program our resupply plan for the ISS is based on single-use ships?

Re:Non-reusable vehicles

[ghoul]

Sometimes single use just makes sense. The dockyards and land ports of the world are full of containers which were used one wy and abandoned as it does not make sense to ship them back empty and this is on earth, the costs for space travel are an order of magnitude higher. For manned vessels we should be trying for reusable vehicles but for Cargo? I think not.

Re:Non-reusable vehicles

[Lumpy]

And the fact that the Russians with their low tech systems can do it far more reliably than the United states and our "superior" technology and space program.

The russian space program has been way ahead of us in orbital operations for decades. That stupid shuttle set up back 20 years.

Re:Non-reusable vehicles

[demachina]

You can't just "park" a ship a few miles from the ISS. The ISS orbit is constantly decaying and being boosted. You would have to exactly match its orbit to the ISS to keep anything "parked" anywhere near it. If its not doing anything useful there is no point burning the propellant.

You could maybe make a case for attaching all these ships to the ISS and growing its storage, lab or habitation space, but there are no docking ports designed for this, they would grow the mass of the ISS requiring more propellant to maintain orbit. They would also just complicate power, pressurization, etc so if they aren't doing anything useful they probably aren't really worth it. To make them useful on orbit would substantially increase the expense to build them and reduce their cargo capacity.

Otherwise this is awesome news and cheers for ESA. It is about time the NASA/Russia stanglehold on the ISS was broken. NASA and the U.S. in particular just haven't been sane managers of the ISS or just about anything else about the manned space program since Apollo ended. Its especially sad all the money that is being poured in to the cosmic ray detector that would actually do valuable research on ISS for a change, but NASA probably wont launch it.

It remains to be seen if ESA and Japan can make the ISS useful and worth the expense but they sure can't do any worse than NASA in this regard.

Re:Non-reusable vehicles

[Dun Malg]

Yes, it's tragicomically wasteful. I don't understand why they can't design a cargo/supply ship that STAYS IN ORBIT. I mean, sure, let's go ahead and de-orbit the ISS trash in some kind of disposable carrying module They could, but in doing so they'd have to redesign it from its current philosophy of disposable carrying module to that of reusable spacecraft. Then they'd have to design a new disposable carrying module to hold all the garbage, which people like you would again decry as "wasteful" and demand it be refueled and parked up on blocks in the ISS front yard "jest in case we needs a 'nuther pickup truck someday".

The whole concept of multi-million-dollar disposable rockets is just ludicrous! The rockets are all disposable. The spacecraft you want to "save for later" is just the small bit at the end of the rocket.

Look, this is stupid. Space travel is inherently costly in terms of resources. You just can't look at it the same as (say) driving a semi from Los Angeles to Phoenix. So much has been expended in getting that tiny cargo there that arguing over throwing out the box it came in is just ridiculous.

Re:Not trivial

[backwardMechanic]

Isn't the key word there 'trial'? According to the fine article, it happened back in '97, i.e. a decade ago. The article is interesting. It leaves me really impressed that Mir had all those troubles, but survived in orbit without killing anyone. This is meant to be cutting edge science and engineering. Things will go wrong. Yes, Mir wore out in the end, but after years of fine service.

Containers?

[ghoul]

When will we shift to containerization of space cargo. Containers have already changed the game in air, sea and land cargo transport. Why not Space? If we could develop a standard cargo space container which could be handled by the soyuz rocket , the Ariane rocket, the space shuttle, the Japanese HTV, the Chinese Long March or the Indian GSLV we would have come a long way in moving towards commercialization of space. Yes we need multiple suppliers of cargo vessels to avoid single point failures but why do they all have to be different designs?

Re:Containers?

[DerekLyons]

You want to know what happens when you standardize too soon? You end up with lock in, which leads to problems down the road when you learn what you really need. (See "IBM PC, History Of" and "HTML Standards, history of".)
 
The other problem is that vehicles you list have a wide variety of performance characteristics. A single standard 'container' (vehicle) that fit them all would end up being limited to the least common denominator.
 
And lastly - competition is good. Competition breeds innovation.

Re:Automated?

[kamapuaa]

Really there's very little relation between automated docking and automated mining of the moon. My telling machine is also automated, but that's not a step towards mining space rocks.