Diary from a space project – 15 March 2012, Thursday

Update from ESA’s Charlotte Beskow – Ed.

ATV-3 fully integrated into fairingBusy days indeed! Here is an update on the planned activities Kourou. While activities at Kourou take the lead, the rest of the sites involved in ATV launch (les Mureaux, Bremen, Toulouse and ESA/ESTEC) keep up-to-date with regular via telephone conferences (saving travel time and money).

Hopefully the weather will be cooperative because sometimes the rain pounds down so hard on the roof in Kourou that it is impossible
to hear what is being said on the phone!!

  • D-9 Fairing lowered back on top of ATV-3 – 14 March
  • D-4 Countdown dress rehearsal – 16 March – Main Inspection Point for ATV Project team – ATV-3 ready for launch
  • D-3 ESA Formal Launch Readiness Review (LRR) – 19 March
  • D-2/1 Weather briefings from Arianespace
  • D-1 Data upload to ATV-3 computers – final flight data sets from ATV-CC
  • (ATV Control Centre) stored on board ATV on the launch pad and start of countdown – 22 March
  • D0 Launch – planned for 23 March (04:31 GMT)
  • D+5 Planned docking to the ISS – 28 March (late in the evening)

As always, these dates are forecast only and could change – yet another reason to check the ATV blog regularly – Ed!

And then — just to be complete: ATV-4 launch minus < 1 year !!

  • 14 March – Meeting with ATV prime contractor Astrium to give ‘go ahead’ for ATV-4 spacecraft standalone functional test
  • 21 March – Kick-off for the preliminary mission analysis with Arianespace!

All for now,

— Charlotte