PARIS --
Europe's first space station cargo carrier has regained the use of its defective
propulsion system and has begun orbit-raising maneuvers, European Space Agency
(ESA) officials said on Tuesday.
Jules
Verne, a 41,887-pound (19,000-kg) Automated
Transfer Vehicle (ATV), was slated to use its onboard engines to raise its
orbit by about 53 miles (85 km), to 214-miles
(345-km), in preparation for a series of test maneuvers that should end
with a docking with the International Space Station April 3, mission managers
said.
"Jules Verne ATV successfully performed a series of orbital maneuvers
earlier this afternoon," ESA officials said in a mission status update. "Two
additional orbit maneuvers tomorrow afternoon will complete the phasing boost."
ESA launched
the unmanned cargo ship the on March 8 (Eastern Time) atop an Ariane 5
rocket. The first of its kind, the ATV is designed to deliver
food, water, supplies and fuel to the station.
One of four
thruster packages on the ATV, each controlling seven motors, was
shut down Sunday shortly after launch when its fuel and oxidizer lines
showed differing pressure levels. While the vehicle is designed to operate with
only three thruster systems working, officials did not want to proceed with the
orbit-raising sequence until they had resolved the thruster issue.
Program
managers had said it was unclear whether the pressure difference was real, or
reflected a faulty reading by the Propulsion Drive Electronics (PDE) control
system, which automatically switched to a backup propulsion assembly.
Officials
said then they would restart the PDE system as part of a series of commands to
determine the cause of the problem. John Ellwood, ATV mission manager at ESA,
had said the problem might be a temporary reaction to the vibrations the system
suffered during launch.
ESA
spokesman Franco Bonacina said thruster system's recovery allowed today's two orbit-raising
maneuvers.
A planned
demonstration of the ATV's collision-avoidance maneuver will be postponed by 24
hours, to March 13, as a result of the thruster issue, Bonacina said. The
maneuver is intended to give confidence to space station managers that ATV can
dock safely with the orbital facility.
Jules Verne
will remain in a parking orbit about 1,200 miles (2,000 km) away from the ISS
due to another station-bound spacecraft - NASA's shuttle Endeavour - which launched
toward the orbiting lab early Tuesday on a record 16-day-long construction mission.
The shuttle's seven-astronaut crew will deliver a new crewmember, the first
piece of Japan's massive Kibo lab and a two-armed Canadian maintenance robot to
the station during their spaceflight.
After
Endeavour departs the space station on March 24, Jules Verne will prepare for
two planned demonstration days, initially scheduled for March 29 and March 31,
respectively, before docking on April 3.
SPACE.com
Senior Editor Tariq Malik contributed to this report from New York City.
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