ESA ATV-CC: ISS reboost completed

ESA’s Jean-Christophe Ronnet was working on the control console during today’s burn in the Mission Director’s chair at ATV Control Centre, Toulouse, France.

As previously reported, the reboost comprised a single burn using the ATV’s Orbit Correction System and it ran a bit longer than the planned 243 seconds.

The boost used 79.6 kg of fuel, and was intended to provide an increase in speed for the Station of around 0.6 m/second and increase its height by 1 km (the flight dynamics teams are doing an analysis to determine the actual performance).

While the operation from the ATV-CC was not very complex, Jean-Christophe says the reboost was a team effort. At ATV-CC, the activity involved operations teams from ESA and CNES, as well as ESA’s ATV programme Engineering Support Team.

As always, additional teams working on flight dynamics, software support and a number of other crucial areas were also involved. “The next ATV reboost is now being planned, but this depends on the launch date of Shuttle Endeavour on the STS-134 mission,” says Jean-Christophe.

ATV Flight Director Burkhard Jelineck also sent in a note: “Future reboost dates, as Jean-Christophe mentioned, depend on the actual Shuttle lunch date, but the earliest possible is 2 June, with a speed increase of 6 metres/second – ten times more than today’s. Later in June, there should be a reboost – in fact a ‘bi-boost’ – of 11 m/s.”