News

March 29, 2012.
The RSC Energia specialists provided the docking of European vehicle Edoardo Amaldi to the ISS

The European automated transfer vehicle ATV-3 Edoardo Amaldi launched on March 23 from the Guiana Space Center successfully docked to the Russian Service Module Zvezda of the International Space Station (ISS) at 02:31:17 (on March 28 at 22:31:17 GMT).

The vehicle rendezvous with the Station, its flyby and stationkeeping were performed in the automatic mode.

All dynamic operations in the phase of the "cargo" vehicle rendezvous and docking to the ISS were performed under the control of specialists of the Lead Operational Control Team (Head - First Deputy General Designer of RSC Energia V.A. Soloviev) working at the Mission Control Center near Moscow (MCC-M) and their colleagues from the European Mission Control Center located in Toulouse, France.

The ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko working onboard the ISS controlled the accuracy of ATV-3 docking to the Station.

Edoardo Amaldi delivered more than 6.5 t of various cargo to the Station. Among them: fuel, oxygen, water, food reserves, science hardware, parcels for the crew of Expedition 30 working on the ISS.

 

For information:

1. S.P. Korolev Rocket & Space Corporation Energia provides manufacturing and delivery of the Russian completing parts for ATV and integration of these vehicles within the ISS Russian Segment. The list of the completing parts delivered includes: the ISS refueling system, docking system, rendezvous system equipment and control system of the Russian systems within the vehicle.
2. ATV-3 got its name from Italian experimenter physicist Edoardo Amaldi. This is the third European automated transfer vehicle performing a mission in the scope of the ISS program. The first two "cargo" vehicles, namely ATV-1 Jules Verne and ATV-2 Johannes Kepler, were launched to the ISS in March 2008 and in February 2011. It is planned that Edoardo Amaldi will be within the Station for 5 months.