ATV – next steps

First update from Charlotte Beskow following last night’s docking – Ed.

Edoardo is now securely docked to the ISS. The rendezvous and docking went very smoothly — just as planned — and the images were very similar to the two previous dockings.

This is actually the 4th time that an ATV has approached the ISS.

The very first one, “le petit Jules” (ATV Jules Verne) had to prove
himself worthy by making a demonstration run that brought it to the S41 hold point, 12m from ISS, before withdrawing again. This happened on 31 March 2008, almost exactly four years ago.

The ESA ATV cargo spacecraft is docked. All that training was put to good use. Credit: ESA/NASA

After that demonstration run, everyone was comfortable to give the OK for the ‘real’ RDV and docking, which took place on 3 April 2008.

Yesterday, we could celebrate the successful docking — but our work is not yet over.

The hatch needs to be opened to allow crew to access the cargo… Although this in principle is a fairly straightforward and simple operation performed mainly by crew, it does involve quite a few steps and a lot of
coordination between ATV-CC, MCC-M Moscow and the crew.

Tonight, we will perform pressure equalisation, the crew will open the ISS
hatch (there are two hatches to ensure the integrity of the ISS) and perform air sampling. Then, on ATV-CC and MCC-M ‘GO’, they will open the ATV hatch, install a scrubber (to remove any potentially harmful substances), and then close the hatch again.

A few hours later, they will again open the hatch, remove the scrubber,
install another kind of filter, again close the hatch and then their day is
over.

This second filter works while the crew sleeps, and on Friday morning the crew will do the final ingress. At the end of that operation, Edoardo will be properly configured — with the hatch open — for its 6 month stay at the ISS!

— Charlotte