ESA Ariane 5 ES launches ATV-5 Georges Lemaître en route to the ISS

Europe’s ATV-5 cargo ship has set sail on a 14 day journey to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday.

The final ATV mission began when the vehicle’s Ariane 5 ES carrier rocket launched the “Georges Lemaître” from the Guiana Space Centre, in Kourou, French Guiana at 23:47 UTC.

ATV-5
Arianespace’s latest ATV mission in support of International Space Station operations was designated as Flight VA219 in the company’s numbering system, and utilised an Ariane 5 ES version of the heavy-lift workhorse.

As the ATV has the largest cargo carrying capability of all the ISS Visiting Vehicles (VVs), it also has the ability to perform ISS reboosts.

The ATV is named after Belgian physicist Georges Lemaître, carrying on the naming tradition of the European cargo hauler that began with “Jules Verne” in March 2008, which was followed by “Johannes Kepler” in February 2011, “Edoardo Amaldi” in March 2012, and last June’s flight with “Albert Einstein.”

ATV Georges Lemaître is Europe’s fifth, and final, Automated Transfer Vehicle for servicing of the crewed orbital facility.

It is also the heaviest-ever payload orbited by Ariane 5, with a liftoff mass greater than 20 metric tons.

ATV-5 is carrying a large load of both internal (dry) and propellant (wet) cargo. Specifically, the pressurized Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC) section will carry around 2,600kg of cargo, including food, crew provisions, and scientific hardware.

The Service Module (SM) is carrying 570kg of water, 100kg of gas (air and oxygen), 2,230kg of propellants available for ISS reboosts, and 860kg of propellants for transfer to the Russian Segment (RS).

NASA: ARES 1 Rocket en route to Launch Pad

Talk about pressure. As the troubled successor to NASA's space shuttle powers up for its first flight test, a White House panel is weighing up whether to cancel the project.

The Ares I rocket is designed to carry a crew capsule called Orion to Earth orbit, where it could dock with the International Space Station or form part of a mission to the moon. But it has been plagued with budget problems and technical hitches.

On 27 October – or a few days later, depending on how preparations go – NASA is expected to launch the first Ares I test flight. A solid-fuel rocket like those used on the space shuttle will boost a dummy second stage and crew capsule to an altitude of about 45 kilometres. The flight will determine the rocket's stability and test its flight-control software.

The stakes are high. A White House panel has been considering cancelling Ares I in favour of a commercial launcher. Its final report is expected this week.

Mark Lewis, former chief scientist for the US air force and president-elect of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, recognises that policy-makers will be watching the outcome closely, but warns against overreacting to any technical problems that emerge during the test.

"If they have any sort of glitch and someone says, 'Oh, we have to cancel the programme now,' they've completely missed the point," he says. "There are always things you learn in flight that you missed or you didn't properly simulate."