Madrid, 2 April 2008. – The Jules Verne ATV, the biggest cargo-carrying space vehicle ever developed in Europe, successfully launched on March 9 from Europe’s Kourou space center in French Guiana, is programmed to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) on April 3. This is the first European mission sent to the International Space Station and one of the most important European projects of the last thirty years.
With this mission Europe takes up a position alongside the United States and Russia as a pioneer in new technology, by sending the first vehicle to reach the ISS autonomously. With a total investment of 1 billion euros this project represents a 100-million-euro return for Spanish industry in the flight and ground segments. This mission also represents the first stage in the long European race towards more technological and innovative space exploration.
ATV is an ESA mission; the main satellite-manufacture contractor is EADS Astrium. The French organization CNES, responsible itself for the ground system and spacecraft operations, subcontracted GMV to develop the 8-million euro mission-orbit subsystem. This involves the full-time work of a fifteen-person GMV team for five-and-a-half years.
GMV, which will be the only Spanish firm working in the CNES (Centre Nacional d’Etudes Spatiales) control center in Toulouse, is responsible for checking the ATV trajectory to the ISS under the CNES-led operations.
The ATV station-rendezvous maneuver and automatic docking are the biggest mission challenges. GMV has developed the autonomous trajectory checking system (JADOR), which will check vehicle behavior before the docking operation. By analyzing several rendezvous trajectories, the ATV’s correct behavior will be verified before final rendezvous. The final docking procedure will be done by a high-precision relative laser positioning system to ensure the safe rendezvous of the ATV with the ISS. The actual docking will be effected through the Russian module installed in the rear part of the space station.
The cargo vehicle’s trajectory to the ISS is checked by means of a GPS-based position calculation system. GMV is also responsible for calculating the destination and return maneuvers. To perform this work nine of the company’s technicians have been sent to CNES, six of them working on operation control, contributing to the docking phase and the following operations right up to September.
This supply vehicle was successfully launched by the Ariane 5 rocket on 9 March. The ATV is 10.3 meters long and 4.5 meters in diameter. It can carry up to 7.7 tons of all types of goods: food, clothes, fuel, spare parts, experiments, air and water. For almost four months Jules Verne will be docked to the space station, using its thrusters to correct station orbit decay caused by the earth’s attraction.
The Jules Verne will remain docked to the station until next August. Five missions of this type have been scheduled up to 2013; the second launch has been penciled in for late 2009.
GMV is a privately owned Spanish technology group founded in 1984 and trading on a worldwide scale in the following sectors: Aerospace, Defense and Security, Transport, Telecommunications and IT for public administration and large corporations. In 2007 it chalked up a revenue of 77 million euros working with a 913-strong staff. The company’s growth strategy is based on continual innovation; 10% of its turnover is plowed back into R&D. GMV hence ranks fifth among all Spanish firms in terms of returns on the European Community’s Sixth Framework Program for Research and Technological Development and holds several international patents. GMV is currently one of the world’s two foremost suppliers of satellite control centers; as a firm it boasts Europe’s third biggest participation by volume in Galileo; it is the main supplier of C3I command and control systems to the Spanish army and the nation’s top supplier of telematic systems for public transport.
