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L2 Resources: Over 30mb of new images of the ATV, taken by sources.
Related Article: ATV on track for 2007<\/p>\n
Although half the size of the Ariane 5 ECA, Vega has an advanced on board flight system \u2013 as well as using existing Ariane technology. The intention is to use Vega alongside the Ariane. <\/font> <\/p>\n
The 30 meter tall rocket is set for its qualification launch at the end of 2007 \u2013 targeting a market of micro and mini satellites of between 200 to 2,500kg into Sun Synchronous orbits, Low Earth orbits and escape trajectories for use by scientific missions.<\/font><\/p>\n Heading towards that launch date target, ESA (European Space Agency) have carried out vibration tests at ESTEC in the Netherlands. A test fire of the P80 Solid Rocket Motor demonstrator is due to take place soon, following on from a similar test with the second stage Zefiro 23 motor.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2018For the first time, to replicate the Jules Verne ATV rendezvous, ATV flight sensors were used successfully in life-size rendezvous conditions, feeding measurements into the flight control computer. At the same time, a simulator calculates the dynamic motion corresponding to how the vehicle behaves in space,\u2019 said ESA ATV engineer Stein Strandmoe.<\/p>\n \u2018A third system replicates physically this computation into a relative motion between the sensors, carried by an industrial robot, and their targets carried by a mobile platform.<\/p>\n \u2018The integration of all these systems into a closed-loop test, as we call it, worked exceptionally well from start of the rendezvous \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at some 250 metres \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all the way to docking.\u2019<\/p>\n The ATV is set to make its debut flight in mid 2007, launching via an Ariane 5 launch vehicle. A full scale ATV is currently based in Holland.<\/p>\n **NASASpaceflight.com Job Opportunities**<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n <\/font> Testing is going well on Europe\u2019s ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) and Vega \u2013 Europe\u2019s newest additions to their fleet. Critical testing is being carried out on the two vehicles that will debut over the next two years. The ATV will carry out re-supply missions to the International Space Station, while Vega will aim to capitalise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[],"class_list":["post-41926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41926"}],"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=41926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/font>The ATV \u2013 which will serve as an automated vessel, regularly launched by ESA to work alongside the Russian Progress re-supply ship \u2013 has passed another milestone, with the completion of a critical final phase of the automated rendezvous and docking system software.<\/p>\n
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<\/font><\/em><\/em><\/font><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"