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Jules Verne ATV Approached Impressive Dress-Rehearsal to International Space Station Within Docking Port on Zvezda Module

Jules Verne ATV today approached the International Space Station to within 11 m of the docking port on the Russian Zvezda module. The approach was part of a second ATV demonstration day which clears the way for the first rendezvous and docking attempt on 3 April.

“I’m known for my understatements, but the only word that comes to mind about today is impressive,” said John Ellwood, ESA’s ATV Project Manager. “It was impressive to see how Jules Verne, the staff at the ATV Control Centre, the control centres in Moscow and Houston pulled together today. It was a perfect dress-rehearsal for Thursday.”

Today’s manoeuvres included the first demonstration of the critical optical navigation system, using the European-developed Videometer technology. It was confirmed that ATV can use this system to autonomously navigate to within 11 m of the ISS.

“This demonstration day confirmes the performance of the vehicle is even better than we had hoped for,” said Nicolas Chamussy, Astrium ATV Project Manager. “This is a world premier for automated rendezvous using optical sensors, following the world’s first demonstration of relative GPS navigation between Jules Verne and the Station performed on Saturday.”

“Today was an important success for the Toulouse control centre to orchestrate a human-rated mission with the Station and it is a main step which is very promising for the docking attempt on Thursday,” added Lionel Baize, ATV-CC Project Manager for the French space agency, CNES. “It is an incredible challenge to have three control centres working together and to interact live with the ISS crew.”

Mission controllers at the ATV Control Centre (ATV-CC) in Toulouse, France, also confirmed they could issue very specific commands to Jules Verne, including Hold Retreat and Resume. These commands may have to be issued if any unforeseen problems occur in the ATV’s automatic guidance system.

Today’s demonstration also included the first active participation of the ISS crew in the mission. Once ATV had reached the 11-metre stand-off point, the astronauts were instructed to issue a Retreat command bringing Jules Verne back to the 19-metre point. The crew then issued an Escape command, which automatically took Jules Verne to a safe location away from the ISS.

The close approach to the ISS presented the ATV team with an opportunity to inspect some thermal blankets on the exterior of the spacecraft that had become degraded. “These were in exactly the positions that our thermal analysis had predicted. At the moment we do not envisage that this will have any impact on Thursday’s planned first docking attempt,” said John Ellwood, ESA’s ATV Project Manager. “We have addressed with our ISS partners the increase in power we might need to maintain the temperatures and we foresee no problems.”

Data collected during Demonstration Day 2 will be made available to ISS managers for their go-ahead to proceed with a first docking attempt on Thursday. Jules Verne ATV is scheduled to dock with ISS at 16:41 CEST (14:41 UT) on 3 April.

About International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is a research facility currently being assembled in space. The on-orbit assembly of ISS began in 1998. The space station is in a low Earth orbit and can be seen from Earth with the naked eye: it has an altitude of approximately 350 km (217 mi) above the surface of the Earth, and travels at an average speed of 27,700 km (17,210 statute miles) per hour, completing 15.77 orbits per day. The ISS is a joint project among the space agencies of the United States (NASA), Russia (RKA), Japan (JAXA), Canada (CSA) and eleven European countries (ESA).

The Brazilian Space Agency (AEB, Brazil) participates through a separate contract with NASA. The Italian Space Agency similarly has separate contracts for various activities not done in the framework of ESA's ISS works (where Italy also fully participates). China has reportedly expressed interest in the project, especially if it is able to work with the RKA. The Chinese are currently not involved, however.

The ISS is a continuation of what began as the U.S. Space Station Freedom, the funding for which was cut back severely. It represents a merger of Freedom with several other previously planned space stations: Russia's Mir 2, the European Columbus and Kibo, the Japanese Experiment Module. The projected completion date is 2010, with the station remaining in operation until around 2016. As of 2008, the ISS is already larger than any previous space station.

The ISS has been continuously inhabited since the first resident crew entered the station on November 2, 2000, thereby providing a permanent human presence in space. The crew of Expedition 16 are currently aboard. At present the station has a capacity for a crew of three. In order to fulfill an active research program it will be necessary to eventually hold 6 crew members. Early crew members all came from the Russian and U.S. space programs. German ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter joined the Expedition 13 crew in July 2006, becoming the first crew member from another space agency. The station has, however, been visited by astronauts from 15 countries. The ISS was also the destination of the first five space tourists.

The station is serviced primarily by Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and by U.S. Space Shuttle orbiters. On March 9, 2008, the European Space Agency ESA launched an Ariane 5 with the first Jules Verne ATV Automated Transfer Vehicle toward the ISS carrying over 8,000 kilograms of cargo. Rendezvous and docking are planned for early April, 2008.

The assembly of the International Space Station is a major aerospace engineering endeavor. When assembly is complete the ISS will have a pressurized volume of approximately 1,000 cubic meters. Assembly began in November 1998 with the launch of Zarya -- the first ISS module -- on a Proton rocket, and as of March 2008 assembly is about 70% complete.

Two weeks after Zarya was launched, the STS-88 shuttle mission followed, bringing Unity, the first of three node modules, and connecting it to Zarya. This bare 2-module core of the ISS remained unmanned for the next one and a half years, until in July 2000 the Russian module Zvezda was added, allowing a maximum crew of three astronauts or cosmonauts to be on the ISS permanently.

About Zvezda
Zvezda DOS-8, also known as the Zvezda Service Module, is a component of the International Space Station (ISS). It was the third module launched to the station, and provides some of the station's life support systems, as well as living quarters for two crew members. It is the structural and functional center of the Russian portion of the station - the Russian Orbital Segment.

The module was manufactured by S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia and is currently the only fully Russian-built and funded module besides Pirs. (Zarya was built by Russia, but was funded and is owned by the United States). Zvezda was launched on a Proton rocket on July 12, 2000 and docked with the Zarya module on July 26. The rocket used for the launch was one of the first to carry advertising; it was emblazoned with the logo of the fast food chain Pizza Hut, for which the company paid US$1 million.

The basic structural frame of Zvezda, known as "DOS-8", was initially built in the mid-1980s to be the core of the Mir-2 space station. This means that Zvezda is similar in layout to the core module (DOS-7) of the Mir space station. It was in fact labeled as "Mir-2" for quite some time in the factory. Its design lineage thus extends back to the original Salyut stations. The space frame was completed in February 1985 and major internal equipment was installed by October 1986.

Zvezda consists of a cylindrical "Work Compartment" where the crews work and live, a cylindrical "Transfer Chamber" which has one docking port, an unpressurized "Assembly Compartment" surrounding the Transfer Chamber, and a spherical "Transfer Compartment" with three docking ports. The component weights 18,051 kg (42,000 lb) and had a length of 13.1 meters (43 feet). The solar panels extend 29.7 meters (97.5 feet).

The "Transfer Compartment" attaches to the Zarya module, and has docking ports intended for the Science Power Platform and the Universal Docking Module. Currently the lower port contains the Russian Docking Compartment and the other is empty. It could be used as an airlock; however, if the hatch failed, it would be impossible to travel to the rest of the station, so this capability has never been used.

The "Assembly Compartment" holds external equipment such as thrusters, antennas, and propellant tanks.

The "Transfer Chamber" is equipped with automatic docking equipment and is used to service Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.

Zvezda contains sleeping quarters for two cosmonauts, a NASA-provided treadmill and a bicycle for exercise, toilet and other hygiene facilities and a galley with a refrigerator and freezer. It contains the primary Russian computers for guidance and navigation. It has a total of 14 windows -- three 9-inch diameter windows in the forward Transfer Compartment, a 16-inch window in the Working Compartment, one in each crew compartment, and several more. It also contains the Elektron system that electrolyzes condensed humidity and waste water to provide hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is expelled into space and the oxygen is used for breathing air. The condensed water and the waste water can be used for drinking in an emergency, but ordinarily fresh water from Earth is used. There are 16 small thrusters and two large thrusters for propulsion, and eight batteries for storing power.

In figure 1, Jules Verne ATV seen 246.5 m metres from the Russian module

In figure 2, ESA's ATV Control Centre, Toulouse, during Demonstration Day 2

In figure 3, The Zvezda service module of the ISS with Zarya to the left and a docked Progress spacecraft to the right.