This sent in earlier this afternoon by ATV Cargo Operations Engineer Colleen Boggs at ATV-CC.

This morning the ISS commander loaded the last bag into ATV – there is not much space left, they packed in tons (literally)!

The photos (below) from Monday’s cargo activities already give you that claustrophobic feeling. We reviewed pictures of every ATV rack sector and rack front bag to verify that we see the items we expect in those locations and that they are properly secured. The crew performed a few corrections based on our requests and the internal configuration is now approved and ready for undock & re-entry.

Interior of ATV5 ready for undocking Credit: ESA/NASA

Interior of ATV5 ready for undocking Credit: ESA/NASA

Interior of ATV5 ready for undocking Credit: ESA/NASA

Interior of ATV5 ready for undocking Credit: ESA/NASA

Here also: photos of the Break-Up Camera (BUC) experiment. This is composed of 2 units (IRC and SatCom) installed on ATV rack front adapter plates. The BUC will gather temperature data from the forward cone and hatch area during ATV reentry, so it had to be installed in a particular orientation to optimize this data gathering from specific target locations. Samantha performed the install perfectly on Monday and activated the experiment this morning, so it is ready for the excitement of re-entry!

ESA BUC in ATV-5

ESA BUC in ATV-5 Credit: ESA/NASA

ESA BUC in ATV-5

ESA BUC in ATV-5 Credit: ESA/NASA