ATV-2 Johannes Kepler = Ariane 5ES (VA200) - 16.02.11 21:51 UTC

[Salo]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1009/17atv/

Europe's second cargo freighter to fly in December
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: September 17, 2010

Europe's second Automated Transfer Vehicle will carry more supplies, propellant and breathing air than its predecessor when it blasts off in December from French Guiana toward the International Space Station.
 
The program's partners have not officially settled on a target launch date, according to Nico Dettmann, the Johannes Kepler mission manager at the European Space Agency.

Mission planners must carefully thread the ATV between a spate of space shuttle flights, visiting Russian Progress and Soyuz vehicles, and a Japanese cargo mission.

The massive spacecraft, nicknamed Johannes Kepler, will ride an Ariane 5 rocket into orbit. The liftoff from the Guiana Space Center is in an instantaneous launch window.

It will reach the space station eight days later.

Arianespace is holding open the possibility of launching two commercial communications satellites in its December slot, in case the ATV is not ready for flight.

"We have to decide exactly what to do," said Jean-Yves Le Gall, Arianespace's chairman and CEO. "We have the further question of the launch window for the ATV because there are some docking windows to the space station. We will decide by the end of September what will be the sixth flight of the year."

The spacecraft was shipped to French Guiana in May from an Astrium factory in Bremen, Germany.

"The ATV is transported in three parts, which is the integrated cargo carrier, the spacecraft carrying the avionics and propulsion bays, and the separation system, which is basically the adapter for the Ariane 5," Dettmann said.

Dettmann said the cargo carrier and spacecraft bus should be mated by the end of September.

Crews have recovered from an earlier two-week delay in the start of the Ariane 5 launch campaign caused by slips in Arianespace's busy schedule of commercial flights this fall, according to Dettmann.

Officials added several upgrades to Johannes Kepler to increase its cargo capacity and address lessons learned on the ATV's successful first flight, which resupplied the space station in 2008.

Engineers designed lighter dry cargo racks to accommodate soft bags with supplies, saving about 50 kilograms, or 110 pounds, of weight on each rack, according to Dettmann.

The Ariane 5's solid rocket boosters will fly with welded connection joints, giving the launcher more capacity to the ATV's planned injection orbit, Dettmann said.

The sum of the rack and rocket improvements will boost the ATV's performance by about 650 kilograms, or 1,433 pounds.

In an interview with Spaceflight Now, Dettmann said teams corrected two glitches from the ATV's debut mission, dubbed Jules Verne, to ensure they do not happen again.

Engineers partially redesigned pressure regulators in the ATV's propulsion system after Jules Verne suffered pressure imbalance between two of its propellant tanks. The anomaly did not impact the mission, since the redundant pressurization system took over and the initially faulty propulsion chain was recovered.

"We are confident we will not run into that problem again," Dettmann said.

Insulation blankets on Johannes Kepler will have reinforced attachment points and improved internal venting, Dettmann said. Officials ordered the changes after some blankets became partially detached during the Jules Verne mission.

The second ATV mission will not duplicate a series of one-time tests conducted by Jules Verne, which approached the station over several demo days with increasingly ambitious objectives.
 
"Those demonstrations are not manifested for ATV-2, and therefore ATV-2 has not only the full, but new and improved uplift capability," Dettmann said.

The performance-increasing design changes, plus fuel savings from deleted demonstration objectives on the second ATV flight, will permit Johannes Kepler to ferry a full load of propellant to the space station.

The ATV's engines will burn about 4,000 kilograms, or 8,800 pounds, of propellant to raise the station's altitude next spring after the final scheduled space shuttle flight in February and March.

The orbit boost will amount to about 40 kilometers, or 25 miles. The station will need fewer reboosts in the future when flying in the higher orbit, which subjects the complex to less drag.

If NASA adds an extra shuttle flight, it will have to reach the station in a higher orbit, meaning it will not be able to carry quite as much cargo as previous missions.

The STS-135 flight is penciled into NASA's manifest for launch in late June, after the ATV is scheduled to depart.

Johannes Kepler will also transfer 860 kilograms, or nearly 1,900 pounds, of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants to the space station's Russian segment, Dettmann said.

Workers are packing 1,600 kilograms - more than 3,500 pounds - of dry goods into the ATV's pressurized cargo hold. The station's crew will unload the supplies after docking.

Johannes Kepler does not carry any water, but it will add 220 pounds of gas for the station's atmosphere.

Dettman said the mission costs between 400 and 450 million euros, or more than $500 million at today's exchange rates.

After four or five months docked with the station, Johannes Kepler will back away with the outpost's trash and burn up during re-entry into the atmosphere.

A third ATV is slated for launch in February 2012. Its service module and cargo carrier are being assembled in Bremen and Torino, Italy, respectively, Dettmann said.

At least two more ATVs are on the books for launch in February 2013 and February 2014.

A decision is expected by the end of this year on further production of ATVs and the next phase of a returnable version of the cargo ship. ESA is considering both options to continue servicing the space station beyond 2015.

[SpaceR]

Cудя по планируемым темпам, японцы очень скоро обгонят Европу по пускам грузовиков.

[Salo]

http://www.arianespace.com/news-press-release/2010/09-20-2010-board-meeting.asp

The first Ariane 5 launch in 2011 – which will be the 200th Ariane mission – will boost into orbit the Johannes Kepler ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) cargo vessel on a date compatible with the docking slots for the International Space Station (ISS), to be decided by ISS partners. This date will be guaranteed no matter what the schedule is for other Ariane 5 launches, thus confirming the versatility of the European launch system.

[Salo]

http://www.spacenews.com/launch/100921-conflicts-push-atv2-launch.html

Tue, 21 September, 2010
Range Conflicts Push ATV-2 Launch at Least to February[/size]
By Peter B. de Selding

    PARIS — The second model of Europe's automated space station cargo carrier will not be launched until February at the earliest, rather than in December as planned, in what European government and industry officials said Sept. 21 is a classic conflict between commercial and government customers that use the same rocket.

    The decision to delay the launch of the second 20,000-kilogram Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to the international space station will require the 18-nation European Space Agency (ESA) to negotiate with NASA and the other space station partners on a suitable backup launch date.

    These negotiations may not be easy, government and industry officials said. NASA has planned the launch of a U.S. space shuttle for February — the next time the station's orbit is aligned correctly for an ATV launch. Having both ATV and the shuttle scheduled to arrive at the station in the same period is viewed as less than ideal, these officials said.

    "We will sit down with our partners as we have done for more than 10 years now and we will find a solution," ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said in a Sept. 21 interview, referring to ESA's proposed February ATV-2 launch date. "These problems are resolved through compromise and negotiations."

    Simonetta di Pippo, ESA's space station director, said she regretted the delay but was nonetheless proud of the ATV-2 team's ability to keep the vehicle's assembly and launch preparations on schedule for the past 18 months.

    In a Sept. 21 interview, di Pippo said any delay from a December launch will be due to factors unrelated to the ATV-2's readiness. Vehicle preparations at the Guiana Space Center spaceport in French Guiana are consistent with a December launch date, she said.

    Dordain agreed, saying ESA had established an independent board of inquiry, headed by the ESA inspector-general, to assess the vehicle's readiness. Dordain said that review concluded that ATV-2 could make the December date.

    On the other side of the ATV-2 debate is the Arianespace commercial-launch consortium of Evry, France, which is struggling to make up for time lost earlier this year when its operations were suspended to correct a defect in the helium-pressurization system of the Ariane 5 vehicle. Operations were delayed more recently to accommodate the late arrival of a commercial satellite requiring a last-minute parts replacement.

    The result is that Arianespace, which had planned to begin its 2010 mission year in February or March, was obliged to wait until May for the year's first launch. The company had hoped to conduct seven Ariane 5 missions in 2010, equaling a record set in 2009, but now will be able to conduct six at most. It has now scheduled launches, each carrying two commercial telecommunications spacecraft, for late October, late November and late December.

    In a Sept. 21 interview, Arianespace Chief Executive Jean-Yves Le Gall said inserting the ATV-2 flight into the 2010 manifest would have meant scrapping all three commercial launches now planned between October and December because of the special requirements of an ATV flight.

    The Ariane 5 ES model that will place the ATV-2 into low Earth orbit uses a special upper stage that requires major preparation at the Guiana Space Center spaceport in French Guiana, especially since this stage failed in a 2001 mission.

    That failure resulted in a series of stage-preparation procedures that Le Gall said cannot be compromised. The procedures block most launch-base activity for the eight weeks preceding the launch of ATV.

    "Many of us remember that launch and I can tell you we are not cutting corners on the preparation of this stage," Le Gall said. "We cannot handle other payloads at the launcher-preparation facility during the eight weeks leading up to an ATV launch. That would mean no further operations for us starting in late October if we were to launch ATV-2 in December."

    The convention that spells out relations between Arianespace, the French space agency (CNES) and ESA includes a stipulation that government launches be given a preference in the event of a conflict with commercial launches. This has rarely occurred with Arianespace, in part because, unlike the launch manifest for the U.S. Atlas 5 rocket, Arianespace has relatively few government satellites to launch in a given year.

    Dordain said the decision on how to juggle government and commercial flights is made collectively based on a common-sense assessment of the tradeoffs.

    "Yes, our convention with Arianespace does make reference to a 'preference' for government launches," Dordain said. "But that does not mean I can ask Arianespace to violate commercial contractual obligations. I can't tell Arianespace to never mind its commercial customers, any more than I can tell our space station partners to never mind the imperatives of space station traffic management."

    While NASA's space station managers may have to struggle to fit the ATV-2 launch into the schedule for February given what else is expected at the station at that time, they have an extra incentive: ATV, in addition to its cargo-carrying duties, is needed to reboost the station into its operational orbit. Such a reboost is required sometime between February and April, di Pippo said.

[Salo]

http://www.rian.ru/science/20100922/278053756.html

"Иоганн Кеплер" полетит к МКС не раньше февраля 2011 года[/size]

10:37 22/09/2010

МОСКВА, 22 сен - РИА Новости. Второй европейский грузовой транспортный корабль ATV-2 "Иоганн Кеплер" полетит к Международной космической станции (МКС) не раньше февраля следующего года, говорится в сообщении на сайте Space News со ссылкой на генерального директора Европейского космического агентства Жан-Жака Дордена.

"Несмотря на готовность ATV к полету, старт не может состояться в декабре, как планировалось ранее. Виной тому - "конфликт интересов" между государственными структурами объединенной Европы и коммерческими организациями", - отметил Дорден.

Как уточнил в свою очередь исполнительный директор концерна Arianespace, предоставляющего пусковые услуги, Жан-Ив Ле Галль, в компании просто не успеют подготовить запуск ATV вовремя, поскольку им необходимо выполнить обязательства перед частными заказчиками.

Кроме того, Европейскому космическому агентству еще предстоит сложная процедура согласования графика полетов к МКС с НАСА, которое наметило на февраль 2011 года полет шаттла "Эндевор".

Второй европейский автоматический грузовой корабль АTV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) находится на космодроме Куру во Французской Гвиане.

Корабль получил имя в честь немецкого астронома и математика Иоганна Кеплера. Решение было принято в 2009 году в связи с 400-летием публикации научной работы Кеплера "Новая астрономия". Системы стыковки и дозаправки для кораблей ATV поставляет РКК "Энергия".

Европейский грузовой корабль способен доставить на МКС около 7,5 тонны топлива, воды, кислорода, азота и других материалов. Это приблизительно в три раза больше, чем доставляет на станцию российский грузовой корабль "Прогресс". С помощью его двигателей также осуществляется коррекция орбиты станции. Кроме того, "грузовик" предназначен для освобождения МКС от отработанных материалов и мусора.

Первый ATV получил название "Жюль Верн" (Jules Verne) в честь первого писателя в жанре научной фантастики, третий - имя итальянского физика Эдоардо Амальди (Edoardo Amaldi).

Грузовые корабли ATV доказали свою состоятельность в 2008 году, когда "Жюль Верн" совершил демонстрационный полет на МКС, куда доставил 4,5 тонны продовольствия, воды, топлива, материалов и оборудования. Корабли ATV играют важную роль в логистике станции и операционной деятельности.

[Salo]

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/100930-esa-reassurances-clear-cargo-launch.html

Thu, 30 September, 2010
ESA Reassurances Clear Way for Station Cargo Launch Delay[/size]
By Peter B. de Selding

    PRAGUE, Czech Republic — The European Space Agency (ESA) has secured approval from its international space station partners to delay the launch of the ATV-2 cargo carrier by two months, to mid-February, following ESA guarantees that there will be no more postponements caused by commercial concerns for Europe's Arianespace launch consortium, government officials said Sept. 30.

    A formal announcement of the agreement is expected Oct. 1.

    Arianespace Chief Executive Jean-Yves Le Gall in turn has promised ESA that even if a planned late-December launch of two telecommunications satellites is delayed for whatever reason, this commercial mission will be rescheduled for March, giving time for the ATV-2 launch to occur around Feb. 15.

    The 20,000-kilogram Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) delivers water and other supplies to the station. It is also needed to reboost the station into its operating orbit, a maneuver that NASA has said it wants to occur in March or April.

    Managing the arrival and departure of vehicles to the station — Europe's ATV, Japan's smaller H-TV cargo transporter, the U.S space shuttle and Russian Soyuz manned flights and Progress cargo deliveries — has been made more complicated by the ATV-2 delay.

    NASA, as the station's general contractor, had pushed for a December launch, government officials said. ESA officials, including ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain, have clearly been uncomfortable in explaining the two-month delay.

    The situation has been made more sensitive by the fact that a high-ranking German government official wrote his French counterpart expressing concerns about the issue. Peter Hintze, parliamentary state secretary in Germany's Ministry of Economics, which has principal oversight authority over German space policy, wrote French Research Minister Valerie Pecresse in mid-September to communicate Germany's displeasure, according to three officials familiar with the letter.

    German industry is prime contractor for the ATV, although French industry had a prime design role. France is Europe's principal backer of the Ariane rocket program. The diverging interests of Europe's two biggest space powers — Germany investing in manned spaceflight tied to the United States, and France more focused on independent access to space via Arianespace — has been a recurring theme for more than 20 years as each has tried to pull ESA in its favored direction.

    It is with this historical backdrop that the Franco-German tensions over the ATV-2's delay should be seen, European government officials said.

    Addressing an Arianespace cocktail reception Sept. 27, Le Gall sought to defuse the issue by promising that the ATV-2 flight in mid-February would not be interfered with, no matter what the consequences to Evry, France-based Arianespace's commercial manifest.

    Arianespace currently has planned the launch of six commercial telecommunications satellites on three heavy-lift Ariane 5 rockets for October, November and December. The requirements of an ATV launch force Arianespace to cease commercial operations for eight weeks before a planned ATV launch. Any delay in the late-December commercial mission will therefore oblige the flight's two customers to wait until March for the next opportunity.

[Salo]

SFN: One-day delay of final shuttle launch makes room for ATV

[Salo]

http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=12898

Международные партнеры по МКС согласовали новые даты стартов шаттла «Эндевор» и ATV-2
:: 02.10.2010

В рамках Международного астронавтического конгресса-2010  в Праге Роскосмос, НАСА и ЕКА в пятницу согласовали новые даты стартов американского шаттла «Эндевор» и европейского грузовика ATV-2 «Иоганн Кеплер» к Международной космической станции. График был пересмотрен с целью обеспечения последовательности запусков в программе.
«Иоганн Кеплер», который должен был отправиться к МКС в декабре нынешнего года, теперь полетит 15 февраля 2011г. Компания «Арианеспас», которая обеспечивает выведение ATV-2 на орбиту на РН «Ариан 5», также подтвердила свое обязательство осуществить запуск в указанное время.
«Эндевор» STS-134, полет которого должен быть начаться 1 февраля, стартует к станции 27 февраля следующего года. Напомним, что для «Эндевора» это будет последний полет по программе «Спейс шаттл».
Как известно, только российские корабли «Союз» смогут доставлять космонавтов и астронавтов на МКС после прекращения полетов шаттлов. Роскосмос примет во внимание согласованные даты стартов американских и европейских кораблей применительно к организации запусков пилотируемых "Союзов" и грузовых "Прогрессов" к МКС.  

Пресс-служба Роскосмоса

[Launch1961]

«Иоганн Кеплер», который должен был отправиться к МКС в декабре нынешнего года, теперь полетит 15 февраля 2011г. Компания «Арианеспас», которая обеспечивает выведение ATV-2 на орбиту на РН «Ариан 5», также подтвердила свое обязательство осуществить запуск в указанное время.
«Эндевор» STS-134, полет которого должен быть начаться 1 февраля, стартует к станции 27 февраля следующего года.

Офигенно. :wink:
Люди для которых перенос старта грузовика на месяц - это норма а пуск заурядного грузовика - событие планетарного масштаба хотят делать в космосе что-то пилотируемое и коммерческое... :wink:

[Launch1961]

Тут пуск Пргресса на сутки перенесли - и вони сразу - задохнуться и не жить... :cry:
Ааа -какие козлы эти русские - у них ничего не работает
Ааа -какие козлы эти русские - если у них что-то летит - то только через жопу
Ааа -какие козлы эти русские. На всякий случай. На будущее.
Извините, наверно наболело.

[Launch1961]

Для начала - пусть хотя бы научатся пускать свой грузовик раз в год. Никто пока большего не требует.

[Старый]

Офигенно. :wink:
Люди для которых перенос старта грузовика на месяц - это норма а пуск заурядного грузовика - событие планетарного масштаба хотят делать в космосе что-то пилотируемое и коммерческое... :wink:

Ну грузовик не совсем заурядный, размером с ТКС.

[Launch1961]

Офигенно. :wink:
Люди для которых перенос старта грузовика на месяц - это норма а пуск заурядного грузовика - событие планетарного масштаба хотят делать в космосе что-то пилотируемое и коммерческое... :wink:

Ну грузовик не совсем заурядный, размером с ТКС.

Так  сделайте заурядный но чтобы нармально возил грузы и впрягайтесь в грузопоток

[Старый]

Так  сделайте заурядный но чтобы нармально возил грузы и впрягайтесь в грузопоток

Зуарядный впряжённый в грузопоток уже есть.

[Launch1961]

Так  сделайте заурядный но чтобы нармально возил грузы и впрягайтесь в грузопоток

Зуарядный впряжённый в грузопоток уже есть.

В таком случае все намного проще - надо решать свои проблемы (отработка себя любимого и сложного например) и не надо необоснованно гавкать на тех кто решает другие проблемы которые ты решить не можешь и которые за тебя решают другие.

[Старый]

В таком случае все намного проще - надо решать свои проблемы (отработка себя любимого и сложного например) и не надо необоснованно гавкать на тех кто решает другие проблемы которые ты решить не можешь и которые за тебя решают другие.

Единственная своя проблема - слишком большая ракета (Ариан-5) которая заставляет делать корапь размерности ТКСа.
 Насколько мне помнится во времена когда летали первые-вторые Прогрессы тоже всё было не очень гладко и не очень по графику.
 Так что к первому-второму и пятидесятому-сотому полётам требования совершенно разные. Кто возмущается вторым АТВ пусть вспомнит как у него летали первые 25 союзов (в смысле по Союз-25). Как там было с графиком и вобще...
 В принципе можно и поближе глянуть: как там было с графиком мировских да и мксовских модулей? Тоже размерность АТВ...

[Launch1961]

Так что к первому-второму и пятидесятому-сотому полётам требования совершенно разные.

Ну вот давайте для начала дождемся ихнего пятидесятого-сотого.
Тогда они (возможно) поимеют такое же право ругать нас как и мы их.
А пока - пусть извиняют.

[Salo]

Вся проблема в том, что ракету предназначенную для декабрьского пуска отдали под коммерческий пуск. Вот и пошла катавасия.

[Launch1961]

Вся проблема в том, что ракету предназначенную для декабрьского пуска отдали под коммерческий пуск. Вот и пошла катавасия.

Вопрос в том, что первично а что вторично.

[PIN]

Ааа -какие козлы эти русские - у них ничего не работает

А конкретики можно?