PARIS: A revolutionary European-made space freighter has reached a test orbit after overcoming a minor hiccup following its launch last weekend, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday.
The so-called Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), taken aloft from ESA’s base in Kourou, French Guiana, successfully performed two burns by its main engines that boosted it to a height of 303 kilometres, it said.
“The entire spacecraft is working beautifully and the actual degree of control during these boosts has been even better than expected,” said ATV project manager John Ellwood in a press statement.
On Wednesday ESA technicians overcame a hitch in onboard computers after the ATV’s propulsion system was partially closed down because of a differential in pressure between propellant compounds.
In the coming days, the ATV will be tested for its collision avoidance system, ESA said.
The freighter is designed to dock automatically with the International Space Station (ISS) on April 3, delivering 7.5 tons of water, food and other essential to its crew.
The first ATV is named after Jules Verne, the French author who pioneered science fiction.
Designing and building it has cost ESA 1.3 billion euros (2.01 billion dollars). Four more cargo ships are in the works, with their assembly and launch each costing just over 300 million euros.—AFP
