The unmanned European space ship ‘Jules Verne’ (also known as the Automated Transfer Vehicle – ATV) has performed its first tasks successfully, navigating to within 3.5km of the International Space Station (ISS). The craft, which is carrying some five tonnes of food for the crew at the ISS, used relative GPS measurements to determine its position compared to the position of the space station, then successfully performed an ‘escape’ manoeuvre on the instructions of ground staff, situated in Toulouse, France. The craft must carry out two rigorous navigation rehearsal days before being allowed to attempt the delicate docking with the space station. European Space Agency officials expressed their delight at the performance of the Jules Verne. ‘Having tested very successfully on Saturday the first part of the rendezvous, in particular using the relative GPS between that on Jules Verne and on the Russian Service Module of the ISS, we now have the go-ahead to the test the second part of the rendezvous which uses the optical sensors.’ said John Ellwood, ESA’s ATV project manager. ‘This will be very interesting, but we have a lot of confidence based on the great performance of Jules Verne during […]