Article Posted on : - May 12, 2010

The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is the first fully automatic re-supply spacecraft of its kind. An ESA photo

NEW DELHI (BNS): The second Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-2), the European spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS), has been cleared for shipping to the launch site in Kourou.

ATV-2, named after German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, is scheduled for launch at the end of this year on Ariane 5.

The spacecraft has undergone extensive system testing at EADS Astrium’s site in Bremen, Germany, over the last few months, an ESA statement said.

ATV Johannes Kepler will be dispatched to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana in several sections, accompanied by 59 containers with test equipment. There, it will be assembled and extensively tested before being loaded with cargo and fuelled.

"When the US Space Shuttle retires, ATV will be the largest vehicle supplying the ISS. Considering its technological challenges, like automatic rendezvous and docking, ATV is the most sophisticated space vehicle ever built in Europe" said Simonetta Di Pippo, ESA Director for Human Spaceflight.

ATV can deliver up to 7 tonnes of cargo to the Station, including food, drinking water, gases, research equipment and propellants.

ATV is also responsible for regularly boosting the Station’s orbit to around 400 km, and occasionally manoeuvres the complex to avoid collisions with space debris.

Once its mission is over, ATV is loaded with waste, undocked and incinerated during controlled reentry into the atmosphere.

Astrium GmbH is responsible for both developing and building the ATVs for ESA.