ESA ATV-5 Georges Lemaître: Testing the solar panels for ATV-5

The solar panels for ATV Georges Lemaître undergoing testing at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. 

The launch of ATV-5 on board an Ariane-5 is scheduled for 25 July 2014.

Credits: ESA-CNES-Arianespace /Optique Video du CSG - S. Martin

ESA Ariane-5 Launch picture

Arianespace's unmanned Ariane 5 rocket, carrying the automated transfer vehicle (ATV) Albert Einstein in French Guiana. 

The ATV will resupply the International Space Station with 14,500 pounds of propellant, food, experiments, water and oxygen

Picture: Getty Images

ESA ATV-4: European cargo freighter Albert Einstein separates from Ariane-5 launcher

Europe's heaviest-ever cargo carrier to the International Space Station successfully separated from its rocket launcher an hour after liftoff on Wednesday to start a 10-day journey to the International Space Station (ISS).

The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) Albert Einstein was rocketed into space from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 launcher at 6:52:11 pm local time (21:52:11 GMT).

It separated as planned on reaching an altitude of 260 kilometres (160 miles).

"ATV Albert Einstein has separated from our launcher," Stephane Israel, chief executive of satellite launch firm Arianespace announced at the control centre in Kourou.

The ATV-4 is ferrying a record cargo of 6.6 tonnes to the ISS—food, fuel, water, oxygen, science experiments and special treats for the orbiting crew.

The robot freighter must now deploy its four energy-generating solar panels to start its autonomous navigation, guided by starlight, to the space station.

It is set to dock with the ISS on June 15 at an altitude of 400 kilometres (250 miles) above the planet—at a speed of some 28,000 kilometres (18,000 miles) per hour.

ESA ATV-4 Launch Peanut butter, pyjamas, parmesan to Space Station

European Space Agency's Ariane 5 rocket blasts off from Kourou in French Guiana on June 5, 2013. 

A special delivery of peanut butter, pyjamas and parmesan cheese was blasted into the cosmos to bring some Earthly indulgences to the astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS).

A special delivery of peanut butter, pyjamas and parmesan cheese was blasted into the cosmos to bring some Earthly indulgences to the astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS).

The items were in a cargo capsule launched Wednesday on the European Space Agency's Ariane 5 rocket to bring creature comforts like family photos and sweet treats to the six-person crew, but also bare essentials like oxygen, food and drinking water.

Perhaps the most anticipated among the record 1,400 items launched on the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) are the care packages put together for each of the astronauts with favourites they had requested and little surprises from home.

"It's quite small, but you can actually fit quite a lot in there," ATV cargo engineer Kerstin MacDonnell of the agency's ESTEC research centre told AFP of the bread bin-sized container each crew member would receive.

"Some birthday cards or drawings from their children, or if one of them has a craving for chewing gum or beef jerky or whatever kind of thing they like," she said.

"For the most part it's just comfort things that would help the morale—personal items and mementos from the family."

MacDonnell oversaw the loading of the ATV Albert Einstein, ESA's fourth and penultimate cargo freighter to the ISS, launched from Kourou in French Guiana.

The unmanned vessel is set to dock with the ISS on June 15 at an altitude of about 400 kilometres (250 miles) above the planet—at a speed of some 28,000 kilometres (18,000 miles) per hour.

Image provided by Arianespace on January 1, 2013 shows the ATV Albert Einstein at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. 

Among the ATV's record dry cargo load of 2.5 tonnes were day-to-day necessities like printer paper, tools, toothbrushes and socks.

ESA Ariane-5 with ATV-4 Albert Einstein on board, successful launch

The ATV-4 "Albert Einstein" Automated Transfer Vehicle launches atop an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana on June 5, 2013.

ATV-4 is the penultimate ATV of the present range, to be built and launched by ESA.

CREDIT: NASA TV

The European Space Agency launched its penultimate mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday (June 5), expending great energy to lift a record amount of mass aboard a spacecraft named for the scientist famous for equating the two quantities with the expression "E=mc^2."

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle-4 (ATV-4), an unmanned cargo freighter, lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 5:52 p.m. EDT (2152 GMT).

The second to last of ESA's five planned station resupply spacecraft launched since 2008, ATV-4 was named "Albert Einstein" after the iconic physicist known for the theory of relativity

ATV-4 is the first spaceship to bear Einstein's name, at the suggestion of the Swiss delegation to the European Space Agency. Einstein was born in Germany but studied and spent his early career in Switzerland.

Lifting off from Kourou, the jungle spaceport along South America's northeast coast, ATV-4 soared spaceward with Europe's largest-ever load of dry cargo for the station.

Packed with science experiments, crew supplies, a 3D printed tool box and even copies of Einstein's manuscript explaining the foundation for the general theory of relativity, the craft is destined to dock with the orbiting laboratory on June 15.

ESA Ariane-5 Rocket Launch from Kourou

An ESA Ariane-5 rocket blasts off from the European space centre at Kourou, French Guiana

Picture: JEROME VALLETTE/AFP/GettyImages