ATV-4 bids farewell to ISS following flawless mission

[Crisp]

ATV-4 bids farewell to ISS following flawless mission

 

Europe?s ATV-4 cargo vehicle has undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday morning at 08:55 GMT, completing a flawless mission ahead of its destructive re-entry. The vehicle provided the orbital outpost with a farewell gift, reboosting the Station?s altitude in its final act prior to undocking.

 

 

ATV-4:

The cargo vehicle was launched on its path to the ISS on June 5 via the Ariane 5 rocket from the from the Kourou Space Center in French Guyana.

ATV-4 was the heaviest of the cargo vehicles for internal cargo, beating the upmass of ATV-3 in 2012 ? which carried only 2,200kg of internal cargo, while ATV-2 in 2011 carried 1,605kg, and ATV-1 in 2008 only lofted 1,150kg.

 

 

The vehicle  - named after famed physicist ?Albert Einstein? ? was full to the brim with an internal cargo load, located inside the Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC) portion of the vehicle, totalling 2,479kg of resupply items, spare parts, crew provisions, and scientific materials.

As for fluid, or wet cargo, which is located in the Service Module (SM) portion of the vehicle, ATV-4 lofted 2,235kg of propellant for the ATV?s vessel itself, 2,580kg of propellant for ISS reboosts, 860kg of propellant to re-fuel the Russian Segment (RS) of the ISS, 100kg of gasses, and 565kg of water.

Altogether ATV-4 carried 4,105kg of wet cargo, which is actually less than ATVs 3 and 2, which carried 4,395kg and 5,488kg of wet cargo, respectively.

As a result, despite the fact that ATV-4 transported the largest ever load of dry cargo, the lesser amount of wet cargo meant that ATV-4 lofted less cargo in total than its predecessors, with ATV-4 weighing in at 6,584kg in total, whereas ATV-3 was 6,595kg, ATV-2 was 7,093kg, and ATV-1 was 4,557kg.

 

 

Ten days after launch, ATV-4 docked with the SM Aft Port, in preparation for its unloading.

(ATV-3 Docking Animation created from 70 hi res ATV-3 docking images acquired by L2 ? LINK).

All integrated operations proceeded to plan, including the re-loading of trash that will be burnt up with the vehicle during re-entry in November.

?This mission has gone without a hitch and is an excellent performance by the operations team at the control centre and our industrial partners that built the machine,? noted ATV-4?s mission manager, Alberto Novelli.

 

 

The vehicle ? as per its design function ? also performed a number of reboosts, allowing the Station to remain at its target altitudes during its race around the planet. One final reboost was conducted just days before its undocking.

?ATV-4 used two of its main engines, OCS1 and OCS3, to lift the ISS into a higher orbit,? noted status information on October 24. ?After a burn of 256.6 secs, the velocity of the orbital complex was changed by 0.62 m/sec. The manoeuvre burned 86.0kg of propellant.?

 

Following its undocking, ATV-4 conducted its pre-planned departure burns, ahead of one final mission objective ? to bid farewell via a destructive re-entry.

 

Under the guidance of the ATV Control Centre in Toulouse, France, ATV-4 will perform delicate maneuvers over the course of five days to position itself directly below the Station.

Controllers will start the reentry procedure around midday on November 2, when ATV-4 is 120 km below the Station, which should allow the ISS crew to observe the craft from above as it disintegrates over the Pacific Ocean. This procedure will provide valuable information to calibrate future spacecraft reentries.

 

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[DocM]

2014's ATV-5 will be the last one. Japan's HTV is also winding down.

Both are considering folliw-ons, but costs may be too high given the needed upgrades. If they can't afford it then we may see another COTS program for vehicles larger than Dragon and Cygnus.