Update from ESA’s Thomas Beck at ATV-CC on today’s reboost, the last planned reboost of the ATV-4 mission.
At 13:03 CEST, ATV-4 used two of its main engines, OCS1 and OCS3, to lift the ISS into a higher orbit. After a burn of 256.6 secs, the velocity of the orbital complex was changed by 0.62 m/sec. The manoeuvre burned 86.0kg of propellant.
This was the last scheduled reboost of ATV-4, which is set to undock from the ISS on Monday, 28 October 2013.
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Discussion: 2 comments
Have i missed a big Reboost?
I noticed there wee Reboosts at 20.6, 10.7, 31.8, 15,9, 4,10 and 24.10. Together after the published Blogs they konsumed about 823 kg of Fuel. But according to ESA/DLR Albert Einstein had 2380 / 2580 (diferent numbers form two space egencies…) of fuel for ISS Reboost operations. Where is the rest of 1600 kg?
Hello Bernd:
Although ATV loading is an exact science, it is very hard to predict how much fuel will be needed for a mission. Multiple factors need to be taken into account such as weight distribution, sloshing, fuel tank pressure, purging, reboosts, unplanned debris avoidance and so on, such that fuel calculations change frequently. Thus, the information made public via the ATV blog is often quickly out of date; we often use terms like ‘up to’ or ‘over’ to avoid this confusion. Our ATV-4 mission manager confirms that the remaining fuel will be used for the reentry observation and the end of ATV-4 mission.