First Look At Jules Verne Shuttle Replacement

The space shuttle fleet, for all its sophisticated engineering, is basically an orbital delivery truck. It’s also nearing a well-earned retirement, and this week the world gets a close look at its replacement: a pilotless, fully automated spaceship. The Jules Verne is the first of seven probable Automated Transfer Vehicles, built by the European Space Agency to deliver cargo and supplies to the International Space Station. On Thursday at 9:40 am EST the 20.7-ton ATV will make its first rendezvous with the station. French engineers at an ESA command center in Toulouse, France, have been testing the craft in orbit over the past two days, bringing the delivery ship into the first phases of a docking approach and evaluating how it handles abort scenarios. The navigation software, solar arrays and collision avoidance systems have all worked fine; apart from a slight inconsistency between the oxidizer and propellant in the fuel mix, the flight has been perfect. For the past several days the Jules Verne has been lingering 1000 miles away from the ISS, the two spacecraft circling the planet together until showtime.

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