Visitor’s report – Part III

One small affair for the ESA crew, a bigger one for me!

Ronja, intern at ATV-CC

Editor’s note: Ronja Pawellek is a recent high school graduate from Darmstadt, Germany. In November this year, she had the opportunity to spend two weeks as an intern at ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle Control Centre (ATV-CC) in Toulouse. The third part of her serialised report appears below; the first part, “ATV Control Centre team – a visitor reports” and the second part “A visitor reports – Part II” were published earlier.

So this is my last blog entry. I’m actually writing this in the train, on my journey back home to Germany late in November.

The last few days have been very quiet in the corridors of ATV-CC, but there was a lot more excitement in the control rooms. Simulation week has been going on for a few days now and I stayed until late in the evening.

It was something else walking through the still corridors; everything was quiet — actually, kind of peaceful.

Familial ambience and down-to-earth people.

When I entered the Main Control Room, though, the silence there was different compared to the one in the corridors.

It had nothing to do with a cleared workplace after successfully accomplished work. This was the silence of the ‘late-night shift’. I looked around: about 30 or so people were here to watch the ATV sim. It was a simulation yes, but you could feel the spirit (and stress) as if it was real.

The end of my internship was approaching and I began to feel a bit melancholy. After almost two weeks here, I finally felt at ease and I was becoming more and more motivated to learn all I could about space — my curiosity wasn’t fully satisfied yet.

I never had the feeling that my time here was considered by the mission control team as ’just two weeks‘. In fact, the attitude of the crew rather was, “OK, we have two weeks, so let’s try to make them unforgettable for her.” And I have to say, they managed to do so!

Until the very end,  (I’m actually speaking of the last minutes before I had to leave the office to catch my train), they kept to this plan. Yes, I’m still not an engineer — I probably wouldn’t pass the test if you would interrogate me about ATV technology and its missions. I certainly will never love physics, either (yeah, Kris, in this mission you failed 😉 ).

ATV-3 fact sheet

But something still hooked me. I realized that what is done here actually is not as abstract as it always seemed to me. Space flight is actually a rather concrete activity.

Now all that’s left for me to say is a huge thank you to every single one of the ESA Operations Management Team as well as the people of CNES — and especially to Mission Director Kris Capelle who really did a great deal for me and who shared his office with me.

My time with you folks gave me more than I expected and I leave with precious impressions. Good luck with ATV-3 — keep up the amazing work and, especially, keep up your terrific team spirit! I certainly will follow the ATV-3 mission with true interest!

Do you have a question? Contact Ronja directly