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European Space Agency

Press Release

Successful design review: ATV gets go-ahead

17 June 2003
 
In early June 2003, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) programme
reached a milestone in successfully passing the Critical Design
Review (CDR) during which some 140 international space experts
expressed their full confidence in the design of the vehicle after
analysing 55 000 pages of technical documentation. 
 
Over the past three and a half months, around 40 engineers from the
RSC Energia, 25 from NASA and over 50 from ESA, CNES and Arianespace
conducted a full review of the ATV programme through its extensive
documentation (presented in electronic format) and did not find
anything wrong which would require a change in the design. Seven
panels, each consisting of 15 to 20 people, were charged with
thoroughly reviewing the various aspects of the programme, such as
avionics, systems, software, structure, thermics, as well as quality
and operations. Teams from ESA and prime contractor EADS-LV answered
their questions and clarification requests. 

"The successful completion of the Critical Design Review for the ATV
is an extremely important milestone for Europe's contribution to the
ISS. The way is now free for the assembly of the first ATV, Jules
Verne, and its maiden flight planned for September 2004. Together
with the Columbus laboratory, ATV is a key European element," said
Jorg Feustel-Buechl, ESA's Director of Human Spaceflight.

The purpose of the review was to assess and certify that the ATV
design and operations concept meets the requirements for performance,
reliability, and safety. The ATV project manager, Robert Laine,
compared the CDR process to sieving through the complete programme to
find possible bugs. "The members of these external panels raised some
good questions," said Laine. "Such as asking how the ATV could depart
if the ISS was in a critical attitude, or if the ATV should have an
extra software backup for re-entry. These remarks are very
beneficial, because they help us to think about solutions to possible
problems before flying".
  
In 2000, the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) had to be extended by
six months to rethink the overall concept of navigation and guidance,
rewrite some specifications and make a few hardware changes. For
example, another set of optical sensors (Videometre) was added for
rendezvous and docking, and a set of Variable Conductance Heat Pipes
(VCHP) was added to cope with large changes in power dissipation in
the avionics bay of the spacecraft during orbit.

The successful conclusion of the review is important for the ATV
programme since 90% of the flight hardware is already built and the
final assembly process started. Any design change would have
significantly impacted the scheduled launch of Jules Verne set for
September 2004.

"The programme is ready to proceed to the next step, yet there is
significant work to be done to complete ATV. But we didn't see any
design issues that would be a cause to stop or pause. The ATV is on a
tight schedule with many challenges ahead. It's scheduled to fly in
September 2004, but the team is well prepared and the design is ready
to go into final build", said Bill Gerstenmaier, the International
Space Station Programme Manager at NASA who came to ESA's European
Space and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands,
June 4 to attend the final CDR board meeting.

"The success of CDR was a joint effort of European industry and the
ESA management team with important involvement of our Russian
partners Rosaviakosmos and RSC Energia and full support from the NASA
programme team. All contributors should be congratulated for their
commitment and encouraged to complete the development of this highly
complex spacecraft," said Feustel-Buechl.

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