 | | | | |
| | | | | |
|
Our vision About human spaceflightCurrent missions PromISSeATVMars500 Past missions Multimedia Web Streaming Network (WSN)Multimedia galleryHSF RSS feed Resources Erasmus Experiment Archive (EEA)Mission newspapersPress ReleasesServices CalendarSubscribe
| | | | | | | Successful testing of Jules Verne videometer
26 March 2004
| Cooperation between Europe and Russia on the integration of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) with the International Space Station lasted more than a decade and culminated with a flawless docking of the first European cargo craft to the station’s Zvezda Service Module on 3 April 2008.
All Russian systems aboard the ATV (the Refueling System, Docking System, Equipment Control System, and KURS) demonstrated a stunning level of performance at all respective phases of the mission.
All major joint tasks, such as delivery of dry cargo to the ISS, water transfer, re-pressurization with oxygen, ISS re-boost with ATV thrusters, attitude control, and a debris avoidance manoeuvre, were fulfilled without a hitch.
The giant freighter destroyed itself in a controlled burn-up over the southern Pacific on 29 September 2009.
It is currently planned to launch an ATV every 17 months as part of ESA's ISS membership agreement to haul cargo, propellant, water and oxygen to the space station, and also to provide propulsion capacity at the station.
The ATV is 9.794m long, weighs 19.357 tonnes and has a total cargo capacity of 7.667 tonnes.
Credits: NASA | |  |  | |
| | | | | The Jules Verne videometre, called VDM, is designed and manufactured by Sodern, a subsidiary of EADS in Limeil-Brévannes, a Paris suburb. It has been able, during tests, to analyse images of its emitted laser beam reflected by retroreflectors identical to the ones which will be installed on the Russian Service Module. With a budget of about 7.6 millon Euros covering a two year period, Sodern has delivered pre-qualification models and the first set of flight-rated videometres.
Credits: ESA | | | | |
| | | | | The videometer was mounted on an articulated robotic arm - during testing of the automatic rendezvous docking system for the Automated Transfer Vehicle.
Credits: ESA | | | | |
| | | | | Testing of the ATV's videometer automatic docking system took place at the French defence agency "Délégation Générale pour l'Armement" (DGA), located in Val-de-Reuil. Inside an exceptional building, 600 metres in length, a 120 000 kg mobile platform, able to ride on 550 metre long rails, enabled the simulation of a continuous approach between the two space vehicles from a range of several hundred metres to within almost docking distance.
Credits: ESA | | | | |
| |
| | Related articles State of the art in automatic rendezvousFirst rendezvous simulation: a major step for ATVATV simulation facility will be first to 'fly' very complex missionATV: the most powerful space tug ever builtRelated links ATV
|
HI-RES JPEG (Size: 
