ESA Space Tug Ready for 9th March launch
Date: Thursday, March 06 @ 13:36:55 UTC
Topic:
The European Space Agency's new Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) named Jules Verne is on target for its first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday. The ATV is a 20-tonne unmanned automated cargo vehicle which is designed to take over the resupply from the Space Shuttle which is soon to retire.
All fascinating stuff I can hear you thinking, but what has this to do with GPS? Well the most interesting aspect of the design is that it is fully autonomous, capable of holding orbit and docking with the ISS automatically. It is this automatic docking capability that is of particular interest as it uses a sophisticated GPS system to acquire and approach the station.
Because the ISS occupies a relatively low orbit at about 340km above the earth GPS still works effectively (GPS Satellites orbit at about 20,000km). From 30km out the ATV will switch to GPS to allow it to close in on the ISS. It continues to use GPS data until it is 240m away. At this point it switches to a different system using lasers fired at reflectors on the station.
There is no mention of a TMC capability, Text To Speech etc and athermic windscreens won't be a problem as there are a number of external antennas positioned around the circumference of the craft. Let's hope that the system does not need a reboot in orbit, as it is unmanned there will be nobody around to insert the stylus into the reset hole!
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