Europe's 'Albert Einstein' spaceship is bringing the goods to space station

NASA TV

The "Albert Einstein" Automated Transfer Vehicle launches atop an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana on Wednesday. ATV-4 soared spaceward with Europe's largest-ever load of dry cargo for the station.

By Robert Z. Pearlman Space.com

The European Space Agency launched its fourth cargo mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday, expending great energy to lift a record amount of mass aboard a spacecraft named for the scientist famous for equating the two quantities with the expression "E=mc^2."

The European Space Agency's(ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle-4 (ATV-4), an unmanned cargo freighter, lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 5:52 p.m. ET. The second-to-last of ESA's five planned station resupply spacecraft launched since 2008, ATV-4 was named "Albert Einstein" after the iconic physicist known for the theory of relativity

Einstein's theorieshave been put to the test in space and his work has guided robotic spacecraft to other planets. ATV-4 is the first spaceship to bear Einstein's name, at the suggestion of the Swiss delegation to the European Space Agency. Einstein was born in Germany but studied and spent his early career in Switzerland. [Einstein Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of the Famous Genius]

Lifting off from the jungle spaceport along South America's northeast coast, ATV-4 soared spaceward with Europe's largest-ever load of dry cargo for the station. Packed with science experiments, crew supplies, a 3-D printed tool box and even copies of Einstein's manuscript explaining the foundation for the general theory of relativity, the craft is destined to dock with the orbiting laboratory on June 15.

ESA

The European Space Agency's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4) mission is named for the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein.

Ten day trip and traffic delaysThe Automated Transfer Vehicle, which is about the size of a London double-decker bus with four solar array wings, has on past missions made the same International Space Station (ISS)-bound trip in half the time.

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Europe's 'Albert Einstein' spaceship is bringing the goods to space station