Update as of 05:53 CEST from ESA’s team head at ATV-CC.

Successful last set of TIV (transfer to ISS Vicinity) manoeuvres on 15 June!

  • 06:41:07 CEST, delta V 2.86m/s
  • 05:29:30 CEST, delta V 3.18m/s

ATV-4 altitude is now roughly 410km, bringing ATV to the S-2 Waypoint, around 200km behind the ISS, 10 km under, which will be reached at 07:00 CEST.

ATV-CC 15 June 2013 Credit: ESA

ATV-CC 15 June 2013 Credit: ESA

The next step is a set of manoeuvres that will bring ATV to a relative
position called S-1/2. During this Interface Manoeuvers, the FCM (Flight Control Monitoring) and the direct Proximity Link (radio) between ATV and the ISS are activated and the ISS will perform a slew manoeuvrer toward docking attitude.

For the past five days, all our phasing manoeuvres were designed to bring us to this key S-1/2 point, which is a fixed point (and time!) with respect to the docking event.

There, ATV will be around 39km behind the Station & 5 km under. After this point, the ATV will switch to Relative GPS navigation. The S-1/2 waypoint is
foreseen at 11:38 CEST.