Category Archives: Transhuman News

ATV-4 cargo spacecraft in artist's rendering. Credit: ESA

PARIS, June 6 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency says a giant robotic freighter launched on a trip to the International Space Station is the heaviest it has ever put into orbit.

The Automated Transfer Vehicle, dubbed Albert Einstein, is carrying 6.6 tons of food, water, equipment and fuel for the orbiting laboratory, a release from ESA's Paris headquarters reported Thursday.

Launched from French Guiana atop an Ariane 5 rocket at 1:52 p.m. EDT Wednesday, the ATV-4 is in a parking orbit at an altitude of 160 miles, where it has deployed power-generating solar wings and an antenna.

For the next 10 days, the unmanned spacecraft will perform checks and maneuvers that will eventually place it in the vicinity of the space station at about 250 miles above the Earth in preparation for an automated docking on July 15, the ESA said.

The Albert Einstein will spend more than four months docked to the station's Zvezda module as astronauts gradually unload its tons of supplies.

Filled with trash from the station, it will then be released toward Earth where it will burn up in the atmosphere, the ESA said.

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Spacecraft full of supplies on way to International Space Station

WASHINGTON -- Expedition 36 crew members Chris Cassidy, Luca Parmitano, and Karen Nyberg will speak from the International Space Station to students at Douglas Public Schools in Massachusetts at 11:35 a.m. EDT, Monday, June 10.

Students will be able to ask the astronauts questions about life, work and research aboard the orbiting laboratory. Media representatives are invited to attend and cover the 20-minute space-to-ground event, which will be broadcast on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website.

To attend the event, journalists must contact Beverly Bachelder at 508-476-3332 or bbachelder@douglas.k12.ma.us. The Douglas Public School District is located at 21 Davis Street in Douglas, Mass.

NASA activities have been incorporated into classes at local schools in preparation for the conversation with the space station astronauts. Linking directly to the astronauts aboard the station provides students with an authentic experience of space exploration, space study, the scientific components of space travel, and possibilities of life in space.

This in-flight downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the United States to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching From Space program, which promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information about NASA's education programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/education

For information about the International Space Station, visit:

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Massachusetts Students Speak With Space Station Astronauts

The European Space Agency launched its penultimate mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday (June 5), 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. EDT (2152 GMT). 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.

PHOTOS: Space Station Astronauts Log One Million Photographs

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 3D 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.

Ten Day Trip and Traffic Delays

The 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.

"The nominal duration from launch to docking is five days to 'phase' or synchronize the orbits of ATV and ISS," said ESA's lead mission director Jean-Michel Bois in a blog on ESA's ATV-4 "Albert Einstein" website. "These five days are a compromise between various constraints, mainly to minimize the propellant consumption."

Doubling the transfer time for this mission is a combination of traffic on the ground and in space.

"At the beginning, we need to free the Kourou preparation rooms and launch pad as soon as possible to allow launch of numerous other satellites in the year," explained Bois. "With three launchers (Ariane, the Soyuz launcher and Vega), the Kourou logistic situation is complex!"

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Einstein's Space Station Cargo Ship Launches