Europe prepares huge space truck - by Jonathan Amos
At almost 20 tonnes, the ATV will be the biggest spacecraft Europe has ever flown when it launches in January.The ATV is also a huge statement of capability. The maiden voyage will announce that Europe now has some important new technical competencies to rival the very best in the space exploration business. "This is the most complex vehicle we have ever developed in Europe," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, head of the European Space Agency (Esa)."It demonstrates automatic rendezvous and docking - a key technology which currently only the Russians have, but with much smaller vehicles. You have to imagine the ATV as a 20-tonne truck. When it docks with a manned space station, it has to do it smoothly," he told BBC News.
The first ATV - dubbed "Jules Verne" - will launch atop a specially prepared Ariane 5 from Kourou in French Guiana. The rocket will put the vehicle - the size of a double-decker bus - into a 230km-high (140 miles) orbit, underneath the space station. The ATV will then raise its height and edge closer and closer to the platform over a series of orbits until it links with the space station.
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