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Europe's Automated Cargo Shuttle Docks With Space Station
An anonymous reader writes "A successful docking of the Automated Transfer Vehicle dubbed 'Jules Verne' occurred earlier this week. The first of its kind, the crewless ship reached orbit and lightly touched up against the international space station on Thursday. By now astronauts on the ISS will have opened its doors and begun air circulation in preparation of offloading the nearly 7.5 tons of fuel, oxygen, food, clothing and equipment they need to survive. The EU Space Agency sees this as a historic journey for the program: 'The Jules Verne, named after the visionary French science fiction author, is the first of a new class of station supply ships called Automatic Transfer Vehicles. The craft was built by the nations of the European Space Agency as one of Europe's major contributions to the international station. "The docking of the A.T.V. is a new and spectacular step in the demonstration of European capabilities on the international scene of space exploration," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency.'"
Which would win in a fight? The European robot transport or the Canadian robot manipulator?
You can't take the sky from me...
The science is done; between this and automatic capture and exploitation of asteroids is only a matter of scale and engineering.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
I'd have enjoyed (hopefully) watching that on video. Maybe I'm a big kid? I don't know, I just really like watching that sort of stuff. Anyone find video of it?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Was not Soviet Progress a first crewless freighter ?
That's already in use! Why not UTV = Unmanned Transfer Vehicle?
No sig for you!!
Why not add sections on as they are put into orbit instead of discarding them to burn up? Enlarging the International Space Station would be better, right?
I for one, welcome our automatic space delivery overlords.
I guess they were pretty freakin confident that this thing wouldn't blow up or get lost. Ballsy much?
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
They must be some strong astronauts to carry all that in zero gravity
Rick Roll - the new MyMiniCity. Gah!
With so much energy invested in boosting the transport into orbit, you'd think that they'd want to hold onto the materials once up there. They'd be very valuable in due course.
Unfortunately the ISS is in too low an orbit for that, ie. a scrap yard at that low altitude would reenter pretty soon. The space station itself needs to be reboosted up periodically (a really daft design decision).
There's no reason why the transport couldn't boost itself much further out once it has delivered its cargo though. The energy cost isn't large, and there's no time constraint so even ion jets could be used.
I gotta wonder.. If the US had done this, would we be reading about this on Thursday or Saturday ?
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Russia-2, USA-1 and Europe-0.
Maybe we don't need people making dangerous supply runs in the Space Shuttle.
The full article doesn't say that this is a first. In fact, it contains the following sentence.
Only Russia has previously achieved a successful automated docking in space, Dr. Griffin said in a statement.
I wonder what kind of system the Russians were using and are still using? It took this long for others to catch up and, from the article once again, they had to use GPS and other systems. I'm sure the Russians had it much simpler.
Since we all just got Rick Rolled, why not Rick Roll someone else, why not Rick Roll the ENTIRE STATE OF NEW YORK! Go here: http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/fan_forum/singalong_vote_form.jsp Put in "Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley" into the other query. Then put 11215 into the zip code query. We can all do it if we try!
Why no gyro? Gyros don't need any fuel for attitude control, just solar power. What advantage does not having gyros give you?
Their little heads will spin an explode, and we can't let this happen.
With the Russian accident in mind, why do they still dock the same way ? From what i've read, a collision could, due to the size of the capsule could be catastrophic. Couldn't they make the capsule approach the space station in a parrallel course rather than heads on, than use the robotic arms or something equivalent to pull the capsule in ? of couse that would mean that they would have to redesign the capsule.
Seriously now... can we move onto a new meme already?
Progress IS the first of its ind. The ATV is roughly a large AND newer copy of it. Of course, that is because EU paid russia for the rights to see their tech and then figure out how to improve upon it based on 30+years of tech advancement.
I am happy to see EU getting more into space; ariane, vegas, a number of planetary probes, the modules used on the shuttle (of which that forms the ATV), and now the ATV. But USSR/Russia is the one that deserves the credit for first creating this. In fact, I am hoping that Spacex will consider doing something similar. The reason is all dockings will require an external arm or manual intervention. But I think that the ability to have 2 crafts hook up will be important for a tanker to refuel large sats in the future. Likewise, to auto repair future items such as the new space telescope, will require this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...toilet. Beware of the brown rain.
Seems to me they could use human waste propulsion to offset atmospheric drag, so long as its directed at the earth.
put the waste under pressure and release it in a directed manner.
Ok, so that's a shitty idea.
if you do not use gyros, then you have to use the thrusters. That means fuel. Worse, it WILL limit the lifetime. Of course, for ATV, it is probably not needed (limited lifetime in the firstplace, gyros on the space station), but overall, it would seem that directional gyros would more sense for a long lasting sats (or perhaps ion drive thrusters).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Um, no. NASA was ordered to do the big bang project by the Kennedy and subsequent Administrations. NASA originally planned to go to the moon possibly sometime in the 70's, maybe.
Um, no. Of the landing sequence NASA planned (through Apollo 20), two flights (what would have been 15 and 19) were cut in 1967 and the the third (what would have been 17) in early 1969 - before any landings had occurred.
There are no gaps in the as-flown sequence because NASA renumbered the remaining missions. The cuts occurred as long lead items were being procured and before any serious mission planning was done.
Um, no. When asked for a post-Apollo roadmap and budget, despite the steep budget cuts of 1967-69, NASA asked for the whole [expensive] ball of wax - a Shuttle, a Station, and serious seed money for a permanent lunar base and a Mars expedition. When the Administration made it clear to NASA just how limited their budget was going to be, they made the only natural choice - to ask for funding for the first step of Von Braun Vision, a shuttle. (The grandparent has the shuttle-station order reversed.) NASA has remained hopeful essentially ever since that the blank check years would return - a misbegotten pipe dream that continually badly warped NASA planning.
It surprises many people to learn that the basic contracts for the Shuttle were signed on July 21, 1969 - while Apollo 11 was on the moon, the death warrant for the Apollo program had already been signed (Saturn V production having been capped two years previously by Congress) and its successor was being born.