European Space Agency: Last ESA cargo mission heads for space station

Europe;s Ariane 5, Lifting Worlds heaviest Payload

The International Space Station (ISS) is getting a new load of groceries courtesy of ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV)-5 Georges Lemaître which lifted off today. The 20-tonne unmanned cargo ship was launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket at 23:44 GMT (1:44 am CEST July 30) from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The final flight of the ATV program, it carries six tonnes of supplies to the station.

The fifth and last of the European ATVs that have flown since 2008, ATV-5 is named after Georges Lemaître, the Belgian professor of physics and Catholic priest who first proposed the theory of the Big Bang. The 20,275 kg (44,698 lb) spacecraft is the heaviest ATV to fly and the heaviest payload flown by an Ariane 5, and has the largest power and cargo capacity of any spacecraft currently visiting the ISS.

ATV-5 is carrying 6.6 tonnes of cargo to the ISS, including ESA’s Electromagnetic Levitator designed to study the casting of alloys in a weightless environment, and several other science experiments. In addition, the craft is also carrying breathable gases, food, drinking water, spare parts, and general supplies. Because there isn't a washing machine on the station, ATV-5 is also carrying fresh clothes and a supply of high-tech ESA Spacetex t-shirts, which the space agency says will stay fresher longer.

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Space Exploration: US launches unmanned "commercial" Cygnus cargo ship to ISS

Orbital Sciences Corp launched the first flight of its unmanned Cygnus cargo ship Wednesday to the International Space Station, as NASA forges ahead with its plan to privatize US space missions.

"This is just the beginning of what we can do to support human space flight," Orbital executive vice president Frank Culbertson, a retired NASA astronaut, told reporters after Cygnus went into orbit around the Earth.

The Cygnus capsule, hitched to Orbital Science's Antares rocket, blasted off at 10:58 am (1458 GMT) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility off Virginia's eastern coast, for a Sunday rendezvous with the ISS.

At the orbiting outpost, the Exhibition 37 crew watched live video of the blast-off.

NASA released a photo showing Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano suspended due to the loss of gravity as they gathered around a laptop computer screen in the station's Destiny laboratory.

Cygnus will ferry about 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of food, clothing and other cargo for the crew aboard the space station, which it is scheduled to reach at 1130 GMT Sunday.

"Today marks a milestone in our new era of exploration as we expand the capability for making cargo launches to the International Space Station from American shores," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement 
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