ESA AUTOMATED TRANSFER VEHICLE [2]
Notes:
Ariane-5/Automated Transfer Vehicle orbit insertion. This illustration shows how the ATV payload fairing is jettisoned shortly before the spacecraft separates from its Ariane-5 booster.
Automated Transfer Vehicle approaching the International Space Station. This is how the final, operational ATV will look like. ESA signed a $470 million contract with Aerospatiale in 1998 to develop the Automated Transfer Vehicle. The European Space Agency also paid $23 million to RSA and NPO Energia for integrating the ATV into the ISS Service Module, while the French space agency CNES received $30 million to develop interfaces for the ATV's Ariane-5 carrier rocket. Aerospatiale also signed a consortium agreement with Daimler Chrysler Aerospace, who will produce up to a dozen ATVs between 2003 and 2013. The target price is $70 million per ATV plus $115 million for the Ariane-5 booster. The final ATV version has a dry mass of 9.2t (including its 3,694kg MPLM-derived Cargo Carrier), carries 2.68-6.76t of propellant for ISS rendezvous & reboost and the maximum weight at launch is about 20.5t. The spacecraft can carry up to 7 metric tons of cargo in eight International Standard Payload Racks, including 860kg of propellant, 840kg of water and 100kg of atmospheric gases.
