Written by Derek Kessler on
Friday, 03 October 2008
On Monday evening the end came for the ESA’s first cargo ship. The Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle plunged into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean in a destructive reentry that burned up most of the craft and left only a few dozen small fragments of the ship to fall into the uninhabited waters. The fiery plunge was caught on video by two NASA airplanes contracted by the ESA to collect data on the reentry, as well as data gathered by imagers aboard the International Space Station as it traveled overhead. The reentry marked the end of a successful premiere mission for the ATV system, the first cargo ship built by the ESA.
Jules Verne was launched on March 9, 2008 and soon after docked with the ISS, delivering food, water, fuel, and supplies to the station. The ATV also twice boosted the orbit of the station and performed an avoidance maneuver to dodge the remnants of a defunct Russian satellite. Having completed its mission and delivered its cargo, the ATV was loaded with enough trash that it weighed 13,400 kg (10.5 tons) when it reentered the atmosphere. The entire mission was completed on automatic control with no intervention from ground-based ESA mission controllers.
Having successfully completed its mission, the ESA is now expected to ask its 17 member nations to contribute funds to upgrade the ATV system with parachute and heat shield systems that would allow it to return safely (and whole) to Earth with cargo from the ISS. The cost for the enhancement is estimated to hit €200 million ($300 million) and would transform the ATV from a one-way transportation craft to a two-way vehicle capable of returning several hundred kilograms of cargo and experiments back to Earth.
On Monday evening the end came for the ESA’s first cargo ship. The Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle plunged into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean in a destructive reentry that burned up most of the craft and left only a few dozen small fragments of the ship to fall into the uninhabited waters. The fiery plunge was caught on video by two NASA airplanes contracted by the ESA to collect data on the reentry, as well as data gathered by imagers aboard the International Space Station as it traveled overhead. The reentry marked the end of a successful premiere mission for the ATV system, the first cargo ship built by the ESA.
