ESA ATV-5 Georges Lemaître: Loaded and Locked

ATV-5 (Georges Lemaître) mounted on the Ariane 5 ES launcher before encapsulation.

Credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2014

ESA's fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Georges Lemaître, is now scheduled for launch to the International Space Station at 23:44 GMT on 29 July (01:44 CEST 30 July) on an Ariane 5 ES rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

ATV-5 (Georges Lemaître) will deliver more than six tonnes of cargo to the Station, again breaking the record for the heaviest spacecraft launched on Ariane 5 ES launcher.

Everything has been loaded and the ferry is now sealed until it reaches the orbital outpost.

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst will be the first to open the hatch of ATV Georges Lemaître in space when he takes responsibility for the cargo as 'loadmaster'.

Alexander will manage the unloading of 6.6 tonnes of experiments, spare parts, clothing, food, fuel, air, oxygen and water for the six astronauts living in the weightless laboratory.

The star of the manifest is ESA's Electromagnetic Levitator, which will study metals suspended in weightlessness as it heats them to 1600°C and then allows them to cool.

The 400 kg unit was carefully loaded into ATV-5 in Kourou before the vessel's propulsion module was attached.

ATV's two main sections were then mated, leaving access to the cargo hold only through the forward hatch used by the astronauts.

A special lift allowed technicians to enter the hold from above through this hatch, weeks before final closing time.

Fifty-seven bags were loaded this way, including last-minute spare parts such as a pump to help recycle water on the Station.

ESA ATV-5 George Lemaitre: Robotic Resupply spacecraft set for July 24 launch

ESA ATV-5 George Lemaitre, the last of five robot resupply ships Europe was scheduled to provide for the International Space Station will be taken aloft on July 24, launch firm Arianespace said on Thursday.

Known as an Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the freighter will be launched from Kourou, French Guiana, at 10:41 pm on July 24 (0141 GMT on July 25), it said in a statement in Paris.

The European Space Agency (ESA) was contracted to provide five ATVs for the first phase of manned operations by the US-led orbital platform.

The size of a double-decker bus, the cylindrical ATV modules are launched by a heavy Ariane 5 ES rocket, and use onboard motors and starlight navigation to rendezvous and dock with the ISS.

They bring water, food, fuel, oxygen, experiments and treats for the crew and provide much-appreciated additional living space.

At the end of a mission usually lasting several months, they undock from the ISS and burn up in the atmosphere in a controlled de-orbit.

The fifth ship is named the George Lemaitre, after the Belgian cosmologist who fathered the concept of the Big Bang which created the Universe.

The previous four ATVs were rated as very successful testbeds for automated space flight, and their technology is being considered for future US manned missions.

After the last ATV flight, the ISS will continue to be resupplied by the less sophisticated Russia's Progress freighter and fledgling US private contractors e.g. SpaceX