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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 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
As always, it can be found on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AdFA6WWJ7E
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
The Progress isn't even the first automated Soviet freighter, so, no, this is far from the first automated transport spacecraft. They even used some Russian parts. Typical ESA over-statement (or outright lie). Just the latest in a long line - "first ion thruster" (although theirs was a Russian design that had been in use for 20+years) and NASA and some commercial entities has also used them), "first 3-axis stabilized spacecraft to be operated without any gyro" (although numerous US missions have used gyroless control dating back close to 50 years), etc.
Completely unnecessary in this case, because they had a legitimate claim to an accomplishment this time. Their terminal guidance and overall control appeared to have been *far* superior to the typical Soviet system. Much smoother and neater and apparently much finer control.
Brett
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 ?
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It's still in post-production - they're busy adding a 'Blue Danube' soundtrack.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
I HATE MY LIFE
According to Wikipedia, it is designed with room for a docking port at the other end.
RTA: "Only Russia has previously achieved a successful automated docking in space," Dr. Griffin said in a statement.
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.
Why no gyro? Gyros don't need any fuel for attitude control, just solar power. What advantage does not having gyros give you?
Doh,
You certainly need to find out who's actually behind much of the success of U.S. space exploration,
start with these
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Gröttrup
Just to mention two and leaving out too many to list here. Make sure you understand why von Braun
was so important to NASA and U.S space race with Russians, even though he had Nazi background.
Many of the great engineers of 19th and 20th century came from Germany and from Europe in general
as in many sciences you stand on the shoulders of your predeceding scientists. U.S and U.S.S.R. success
in space exploration just proves that NASA scientists have been the lucky guy to be able to do that too.
Europe has had long history and lots of great scientists along the centuries, but much of the capability to
implement was lacking because it was first scattered most of the time small kingdoms, then smallish national
countries with disagreeing politics.
EU which has grown past decades is changing all that now. You will see a lot better capability to
implement/deploy/execute (choose the words you prefer, please) the brainpower and capability there
certainly have been available all the time.
ac
ps. I wish you get it that I don't have Nazi nor any nationalist group symphaties here.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
You didn't look very hard, did you ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0TbGyIGv_0&locale=en_US&persist_locale=1
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.
Kindly separate what some inaccurate media summary says and what the ESA itself states. Where exactly does ESA claim to have "the first automated transport spacecraft?". They say it is the first of its kind, i.e. one that navigates and docks fully automatically, which is neither a lie nor an overstatement. And quoting from the Smart-1 (probe with ion drive) site:
This was only the second time that ion propulsion has been used as a mission's primary propulsion systemI haven't bothered checking your "first 3-axis stabilized spacecraft to be operated without any gyro" example but frankly I'm sure I'd not find an "outright lie" here or even a overstatement either.
BBC had a video of this as soon as it happened: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7328816.stm They also have a real-time visualization of where the two modules are, so people can prepare for taking pictures of it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7330925.stm
The New York Times article states:
"[It] is the first of a new class of station supply ships called Automatic Transfer Vehicles"
And it definitely is a new class of suplly ships.
You should not bash an organization based on the wording of an anonymous Slashdot submission of an article which does not even contain this phrase.
...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.
Ulster TeleVision, among other things.
Face it, every reasonable length acronym has been used at least once by now
FGD 135
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.