22 June 2012 Last updated at 12:50 ET

A major decision needs to be taken at the end of this year concerning the future of Europe's space truck - the Automated Transfer Vehicle.

The programme is nearing its end and European Space Agency (Esa) member states will gather in Caserta, Italy, in November to decide on a successor project.

For those who don't know their shuttle from their Soyuz too well, the ATV is a huge robotic spacecraft that delivers supplies to the International Space Station.

With a lift-off weight of 20 tonnes, it is Europe's biggest space vessel, and its sophisticated navigation and docking technologies make it one of the most impressive pieces of hardware Esa has ever put in orbit.

But only five ATVs were ever ordered. Two of them completed cargo runs to the ISS in 2008 and 2011. A third is currently in orbit docked to the station; two further craft are in the late stages of fabrication.

Vehicle four (dubbed "Albert Einstein") will be despatched to the launch site in August for a lift-off in Spring next year. Vehicle five ("Georges Lemaitre") will go up in 2014.

The engineers who've been working on the programme will soon need something new to do. The question is "what?"

Esa has just kicked off two studies, valued in total at 13m euros (10m; $16m), which will consider ATV derivatives.

"We have built up knowledge with the ATV on some technologies that are on the leading edge, and it would be quite a pity if we just stopped after all the time and money we have invested these technologies," Nico Dettmann, who runs Esa's ATV programme, told me.

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Europe ponders future of ATV space truck