This sent in early this AM by ESA’s deputy mission manager, Charlotte Beskow – Ed.

The simulation of the complete ATV-4 launch-to-docking mission steps is approaching the most interesting part: rendezvous (RDV) and docking. It has been a very busy ‘sim’ week with a large number of interesting (and, thankfully, false) ‘failures’ that have kept all of us awake most hours of the day.

Flight control team at work in ATV-CC during docking simulation 7 Feb 2013. Credit: ESA/C. Beskow

Flight control team at work in ATV-CC during docking simulation 8 Feb 2013. Credit: ESA/C. Beskow

It is now 5:00 CET and everyone is rather tired but this has been a very interesting week; in a few hours it will be over for this Sim.

For the ESA Engineering Support Team (EST), there will be just enough time  to head back to the hotel, sleep a few hours, check out, go back for debriefing
And then head to the airport…

We are all hoping that the actual flight of ATV Albert Einstein will be much smoother!

— Charlotte

EST at ATV-CC 8 Feb 2013 Credit: ESA/C. Beskow

EST at ATV-CC 8 Feb 2013 Credit: ESA/C. Beskow