Europe\u2019s ATV-5 cargo ship has set sail on a 14 day journey to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday. The final ATV mission began when the vehicle\u2019s Ariane 5 ES carrier rocket launched the \u201cGeorges Lema\u00eetre\u201d from the Guiana Space Centre, in Kourou, French Guiana at 23:47 UTC.<\/p>\n
\nATV-5:<\/p>\n
Arianespace\u2019s latest ATV mission in support of International Space Station operations was designated as Flight VA219 in the company\u2019s numbering system, and utilized an Ariane 5 ES version of the heavy-lift workhorse.<\/p>\n
![\"Z7645\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Z7645-350x228.jpg\")
The ATV is named after Belgian physicist Georges Lema\u00eetre, carrying on the naming tradition of the European cargo hauler that began with \u201cJules Verne\u201d in March 2008, which was followed by \u201cJohannes Kepler\u201d in February 2011, \u201cEdoardo Amaldi\u201d in March 2012, and last June\u2019s flight with \u201cAlbert Einstein.\u201d<\/p>\n
ATV Georges Lema\u00eetre is Europe\u2019s fifth, and final, Automated Transfer Vehicle for servicing of the crewed orbital facility.<\/p>\n
It is also the heaviest-ever payload orbited by Ariane 5, with a liftoff mass greater than 20 metric tons.<\/p>\n
![\"ATV\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Z810.jpg\" "\\"ATV\\"")
As the ATV has the largest cargo carrying capability of all the ISS Visiting Vehicles (VVs), it also has the ability to perform ISS reboosts.<\/p>\n
ATV-5 is carrying a large load of both internal (dry) and propellant (wet) cargo. Specifically, the pressurized Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC) section will carry around 2,600kg of cargo, including food, crew provisions, and scientific hardware.<\/p>\n
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n
The Service Module (SM) is carrying 570kg of water, 100kg of gas (air and oxygen), 2,230kg of propellants available for ISS reboosts, and 860kg of propellants for transfer to the Russian Segment (RS).<\/p>\n
For the ride uphill, Ariane 5\u2019s ignition of the core stage\u2019s singular Vulcain 2 engine resulted in engine health verification checks that took the countdown to T+7 seconds, at which point the twin Solid Rocket Boosters ignited \u2013 resulting in the near-instantaneous liftoff of the Ariane 5 rocket.<\/p>\n
After clearing its launch tower, the Ariane 5 rolled onto a proper alignment, placing itself and its payload onto a 51.6 degree inclination to orbit, heading northeast out of the Guiana Space Centre over the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/A4111.jpg\" "\\"ARIANE")
During the first two minutes of flight, Ariane 5 \u2013 like the Space Shuttle used to be \u2013 was powered primarily by its twin P238 Solid Rocket Boosters, or SRBs.<\/p>\n
Each booster was responsible for delivering 1.45 million lbf at liftoff \u2013 for a total liftoff lbf rating from the SRBs of 2.9 million lbf.<\/p>\n
Aiding the twin SRBs in the first 129 seconds of flight was Ariane 5\u2019s core stage Vulcain 2 engine. This singular engine delivered 301,000 lbf to the stack.<\/p>\n
During \u201cStage 0\u201d flight, each SRB burned for approximately 131 seconds, or 2 minutes 11 seconds before burning out and separating from the rocket at T+ 2 minutes 18 seconds at an altitude of 61km.<\/p>\n
After SRB separation, the Ariane 5 continued to push toward space under the singular power of the Vulcain 2 engine.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Z3111.jpg\" "\\"Z311\\"")
Fairing separation occurred around T+3 minutes 29 seconds at an altitude of 107 km.<\/p>\n
Eight minutes 53 seconds after liftoff, at T+9 minutes, the Vulcain 2 engine complete its shutdown procedures, and the core stage separated from the EPS (Storable Propellant Stage, or Etage a Propergols Stockables) at an altitude of 133 km.<\/p>\n
The EPS \u2013 carrying 10 tons of monomethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide burned by an Aestus rocket engine capable of providing 6,160 lbf \u2013 ignited for the first of two ATV-5 orbital boost phases at T+9 mins 7 secs \u2013 exactly nine minutes after liftoff from French Guiana in South America.<\/p>\n
The first boost phase lasted until T+17 minutes and 10 seconds, at which point a 45 minute ballistic coast phase took place.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/A72.jpg\" "\\"ARIANE")
Then, at T+1 hour, two minutes and 10 seconds, the Aestus engine was reignited to begin the second boost phase. This phase lasted 18 seconds and was used to circularize ATV-5\u2019s orbit at 270 km.<\/p>\n
Finally, 1 hour six minutes and 39 seconds after launch, ATV-5 separated from the EPS and began its cruise to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
However, the flight of the Ariane 5 will not be complete after the deployment of ATV-5.<\/p>\n
At T+2 hours, 24 minutes and 27 seconds, the EPS\u2019s Aestus engine fired again for 16 seconds to drop it back into Earth\u2019s atmosphere where it burned up during reentry and thereby prevent itself from becoming a piece of potentially hazardous space debris.<\/p>\n
![\"L2](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/linktoarticleplease2.gif\")
ATV-5 is scheduled for a 14-day flight to the station, with docking to the aft port of the Russian Zvezda service module at 13:34 UTC on Tuesday, August 12.<\/p>\n
(ATV-3 Docking Animation created from 70 hi res ATV-3 docking images acquired by L2 \u2013 LINK).<\/p>\n
During its trip to the space station, the vehicle will fly four miles below the space station on Friday to test sensors for potential use on future European spacecraft before beginning the final phase of its rendezvous with the orbital laboratory.<\/p>\n
Although this will be the last scheduled ATV flight, its legacy will continue in the realm of Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO), via hardware contributions as the Service Module (SM) for NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft.<\/p>\n
The ATV hardware will debut on the Exploration Mission -1 (EM-1) flight, which is now likely to take place in 2018.<\/p>\n
Images: Via ESA, NASA, and L2).<\/p>\n
(Click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ \u2013 to join L2 and directly support NASASpaceflight.com).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Europe\u2019s ATV-5 cargo ship has set sail on a 14 day journey to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday. The final ATV mission began when the vehicle\u2019s Ariane 5 ES carrier rocket launched the \u201cGeorges Lema\u00eetre\u201d from the Guiana Space Centre, in Kourou, French Guiana at 23:47 UTC. ATV-5: Arianespace\u2019s latest ATV mission in support […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1540,4140,233],"class_list":["post-39535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ariane-5","tag-atv","tag-iss"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}