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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.
They must be some strong astronauts to carry all that in zero gravity
It's still in post-production - they're busy adding a 'Blue Danube' soundtrack.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
RTA: "Only Russia has previously achieved a successful automated docking in space," Dr. Griffin said in a statement.
They actually use the transport to remove all of their rubbish. They can't just throw waste outside, that would present yet another orbital risk. So, they load everything into the supply module (Progress, ATV, or the new Japanese HTV which should get it's first launch next year), and then the supply module burns its engines to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burning up.
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.
Keep in mind that it is up to the /. editors to pick what interests THEM. As such, there is a bit of a built-in bias about what appears here.
10 years ago, on slashdot, this would have been posted right away. But I have noticed that a number of space articles tend to be posted later and later. I suspect that this has little to do with EU, and a lot more to do with less interest in space by younger folks. Hopefully, with spacex, bigelow, and even virgin, we will see this passion about space rekindled again.
If not, it will probably be re-kindled in about 6-7 years, when china puts a man on the moon, with the obvious intention of building a base there. Just as sputnik spurred America, I think that the realization that China has about 1.5 times the number of ppl working on their space program of what America had in total during the Apollo program will cause nations to re-think their priorities, and how to work together.
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.