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ESA's role
Since 1987, European industry under the leadership of ESA has performed concept and system studies of an Automated Transfer Vehicle.
As early as 1988, several European countries made the political commitment to take part in the International Space Station by signing the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the United States and the ISS participants.
In 1992, ESA started a joint study with NASA to define ATV missions to Space Station Freedom and later to the ISS. The following year, ESA and the Russian Space Agency (RSA) agreed to study possible missions of the ATV to Mir 2 — a follow-up programme of Mir — and later on, to the Russian segment of the ISS.
After Russia had joined the ISS programme, it was finally decided to build the ATV in 1994. In February of that year, the 111th ESA Council meeting in Paris gave its consent to the Manned Space Transportation Programme, which included the Automated Transport Vehicle.
At the ministerial ESA meeting held in Toulouse in October 1995, formal approval was given to the ATV full development programme. Among the International Space Station partners ESA represents the 10 European countries involved in the ISS programme including the Columbus and the ATV projects (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland).
Mixed fleet scenario
ISS operations have been divided into two categories among the Space Station partners. On the one hand, the partner specific operations necessary for the partner-owned elements and on the other hand the common operations necessary for the Station as a whole.
The so-called 'mixed fleet scenario', on which ESA has agreed with its ISS partners, gives each partner the right to visit the Station and to re-supply its own Station elements with its own space transportation systems. Independent access to the ISS by each partner, and in particular ESA, has been considered not only as an important political and operational aspect, but also as an important financial asset in contributing to Space Station operation costs.
Servicing the Station
From 2008 onwards, Europe is using the Ariane 5 launcher, which is an ESA initiated programme, in combination with the ATV as an intelligent payload for servicing the Station.
The combination of the Ariane 5 and the ATV permits Europe to transport its own payload to the Station, and also carry propellants, gases and other logistics goods for use by the whole Station and the ISS partners. So at the same time, the ATV mission represents the European share of ISS operations, and it enables the delivery of experiments and scientific facilities to the European Columbus laboratory, added to the Station in February 2008.
Last update: 9 March 2010
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