ATV un-manned supply ship, JulesVerne - ESA's AutoTransferVehicle Options

[ustrax]

I find it the F word unbelievable that there is no debate, here, at TPS, around something as important as the Jules Verne ATV launch...Doug...you payed for it...for a vehicle that will make its way towards the Moon and Mars...ODD, just ODD...
Don't doubt it...this is just the beggining...the beggining of wha we are all waiting for...is it for the fact that it is an European effort?
Tomorrow, at 4AM a new ground will be conquered...
A whole new range of opportunities will be set...
ODD man...just ODD...

[djellison]

Doug...you payed for it.

Actually - the UK isn't involved in ESA's ISS program, so I didn't. There's nothing exceptional in Alan's words - it's no secret that ESA would like a manned program of its own. ATV could have feed-forward technologies for that. But can we actually afford a manned program right now? No. Is there one formally proposed? No. Is Manned spaceflight where I think ESA should be going? Without a radical increase in funding - no.


What happened to ESA's involvement in Klipper? Nothing What happened to Hermes? Nothing. Has any follow on program using ATV development been formerly announced? No. Consider me unimpressed by a set of technologies that might, if the political will is there (which it isn't), become a building block of a vehicle that may or may not ever get made by a space agency that can't really afford it.

I don't see much to get excited about over and above what the ATV is actually going to do which is - whilst not a unique ability, is a new ability to ESA. It's a fat Progress launch. That's all.

The ATV isn't going to the Moon or Mars. It's going to the ISS. Maybe - in the future, 15, 20 years from now, a vehicle that shares some technology with ATV might, just maybe, take astronauts into space in a European vehicle. But is that something to be excited about now? Any ESA vision regarding the Moon or Mars will have to be closely tied to the VSE, and with the VSE almost certain to undergo a considerable ammount of remodelling post-November, it's enormously premature to assume ESA's going to Mars or the Moon. Will it happen, eventually - hopefully. Should we be excited about it now? No - because there isn't a single Euro comitted to such a program. The first ATV doesn't mark any sort of milestone on the way to a European Mars mission.

No Euros, no Eureka.

Doug

[ilbasso]

Just imagining what a ride on the ATV would be like - according to the ESA site, launch to orbit in 3 minutes. It takes the Shuttle 8 minutes to get to orbit. The ride on the ATV would pull even more G's than the Gemini.

[GravityWaves]

An Ariane 5 ES has launched (4:03am UTC) with the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) resupply spacecraft, from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. The "Jules Verne" will park in orbit until after shuttle Endeavour departs ATV's eventual destination - the ISS.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5375

[dvandorn]

Pretty launch, but very, very short time of tracking due to low clouds.

Sounds like everything is working fine, though.

-the other Doug

[dilo]

Terrific shockwave launch in the nasaspaceflight.com video.
From left window, I measured the following realtime data (in red):

calculated speed/acceleration (in black) shows some incongruency, perhaps the real asset angle wasn't 0...

EDIT: the suspect was confirmed by looking to the full-lenght video at space-multimedia, where "S" still equal to 0deg even after SRB separation and fairing DDO. Can someone explain the meaning of this parameter? (speakers talks about angle between launch site and vehicle...)

[DEChengst]

The launch footage is now up for grabs via FTP.

hostname: esa.contentcoders.com
username: esa
password: ftp4esa
filename: 2008-03-09_lanch_editversion.mpg (250 MB)

Who sayed ESA is bad at PR ? I think they're just good at hiding it

[OWW]

Trouble.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5375

Ariane 5 ES launches with ATV - suffers early fault on orbit

Teams are evaluating a problem with ATV's Propulsion Drive Electronics (PDE) 2.
The system in question controls 25 percent of the vehicle's thrusters, and would require extra prop usages for vehicle control should recovery fail.
The fault is believed to related to a mismatch in ox/fuel flow rates, with a second failure sending the ATV in survival mode.
All burns have been canceled until further notice.

[nprev]

Well, this is what first flights are all about...wring-out time. Doesn't sound like a show-stopper, though. Go, Jules Verne!!!

EDIT: Just saw the launch video... ...WOW!!! The Ariane V is one hell of a powerful beast, all right...

[edstrick]

(Beat on me if needed since I' making up numbers... does anybody have the REAL ones?)

There are two problems with the Jules Verne ATV.
1.) It carres 3 times what a Progress can carry, for 10 times the cost.

2.) It's a space tug, carrying a payload cannister. it's an <expletive deleted> DISPOSABLE space tug.

What would it be able to do if it were a REAL space tug?.... if an Ariane 5 launched a "slightly smart" Cargo cannister, the cannister would mass as much as the ATV, have attitude control and enough solar panels <non-deployable.... keep it cheap> to loiter in it's orbit and wait for the tug.. The tug would detach from the ISS and rendezvous with the cannister and retrieve it, rendezvousing with the station and docking the cannister to the station. The tug would replenish it's propulsion system from the cannister through it's docked connection to the other end of the cannister (cannister would have one male, one female docking port.) At end of mission, Tug would detach cannister and put it into an orbit from which the "slightly smart" cannister would do an orientation maneuver and a de-orbit burn with a small <solid?> rocket and re-enter. Tug would re-rendezvous with station and await it's next mission.

It's a good first step, but ESA needs to take the second step.

[remcook]

trouble is over
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMJE7M5NDF_index_0.html

[nprev]

Ed, I hope that JV Mark I is also just the first step. Presumably there will be a series of evolutes as the program matures and new applications become evident (and more feasible).

[climber]

Here we go : http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v181/...29demoday1.html

[ilbasso]

Judging from the state of the ISS construction in the illustration on that site, the ATV has also traveled back in time several years as it approached the ISS.

[nprev]

JV's got one hell of an autopilot, but I don't think it's that good!

Excellent news, though; just minor parameter tweaking, which is inevitable, esp. on a first flight.