Europe's
first unmanned cargo ship is poised to make its inaugural docking at the
International Space Station (ISS) Thursday after two successful dress
rehearsals.
Following weeks
of shakedown tests, the European Space Agency's (ESA) automated
cargo ship Jules Verne is due to dock at the space station at about 10:40
a.m. EDT (1440 GMT), with the outpost's three-person crew keeping a watchful
eye on their incoming visitor.
"We
obviously want to keep close tabs on it as it approaches," station commander
Peggy Whitson told reporters in a recent interview.
About the
size of a London double-decker bus, the 21-ton Jules Verne spacecraft is the
first of ESA's new fleet of Automated
Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) to rendezvous with the ISS. Tucked aboard the
orbital freighter are manuscripts written by its namesake, the 19th century science
fiction writer Jules Verne, and a fresh load of supplies for the station's
Expedition 16 crew.
The Jules
Verne ATV is about 32 feet (10 meters) long, 15 feet (4.5 meters) wide and can
carry about three times the 2.5-ton cargo shipments delivered to the ISS by
unmanned Russian Progress vehicles. ESA officials have said it will be the
largest cargo carrier to the station once NASA's space shuttle fleet retires in
2010. If today's docking is unsuccessful, a second attempt could be made on
Saturday, they added.
NASA's
deputy ISS program manager Kirk Shireman told reporters Wednesday that Jules
Verne's planned orbital arrival today has sparked excitement among flight
controllers at the U.S. agency, as well as their counterparts in Europe and
Russia.
"It's
really been exciting...a great time to be part of the space station program,"
Shireman said.
Jules
Verne launched into orbit on March 8 (ET) from Europe's South
American-based spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The spacecraft spent several
weeks in orbit performing a series of intricate collision avoidance maneuvers
before catching up to the space station, where NASA's shuttle Endeavour astronauts
were hard at work adding a Japanese room and Canadian robot to the orbiting
lab.
After
waiting patiently for Endeavour's departure last week, Jules Verne's flight
control team at the ESA's dedicated ATV Control Center in Toulouse, France,
ordered the autonomous spacecraft to make two approaches to the ISS that tested
its video and laser-based rendezvous system.
A
successful March 29 rendezvous parked the spacecraft at a waypoint about 2
miles (3.5 kilometers) from the station. That test was followed by a closer
approach on Monday, where Jules Verne hovered just 36 feet (11 meters) from
the aft docking compartment of the station's Russian-built Zvezda service
module. Malenchenko and Whitson successfully commanded Jules Verne to back away
from the station using their only means of control over the spacecraft, a red
button reserved for emergencies if the vehicle strays off course, to end the Monday
demonstration.
"They
successfully passed the tests," said Holly Ridings, NASA's lead Expedition 16
flight director, on Wednesday. "It was very close to the space station,
hovering right behind the service module aft of where it will dock."
Russia's
space station Mission Control Center in Korolev, outside Moscow, and its NASA
counterpart in at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will also be watching
over today's docking attempt.
NASA will provide live coverage of the Jules Verne ATV's
space station docking on NASA TV beginning at 8:00 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT). Click here for SPACE.com's ISS mission
coverage and NASA TV feed.
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