This also published on the main ESA portal earlier:

Jules Verne ATV successfully performed a series of orbital manoeuvres earlier this afternoon. The two manoeuvres using the main engines, which occurred at 15:54 and 17:06 CET, initiated the orbital phasing (the period in which the spacecraft adjusts its orbit to match that of the ISS). Two additional orbit manoeuvres tomorrow afternoon will complete the phasing boost.

-- Daniel

This just published a few moments ago on the main ESA web portal:

Following an overnight recovery operation, Jules Verne ATV's propulsion system has successfully been restored to full robustness. The spacecraft has since performed the first orbital manoeuvres necessary to set up phasing with the International Space Station.

Mission controllers in Toulouse are now rescheduling activities to take Jules Verne ATV to its parking orbit in front of the ISS, including a demonstration of the spacecraft's Collision Avoidance Manoeuvre capability. Once in the parking orbit, Jules Verne ATV will wait for the completion of the STS-123 Shuttle mission at the Space Station, before proceeding with the rendezvous demonstration manoeuvres and the final rendezvous and docking.

Full details on the ESA portal here. -- Daniel

Benoit Demelenne, head of the Redu Spacecraft Operations Team at ESA's Redu tracking station, sent in this email yesterday. Note that Artemis is ESA's own relay satellite, and in addition to supporting ATV, it is used to receive data from ESA's hugely successful Envisat mission (more info including links after the jump). -- Daniel

 

"Following the successful launch of ATV at 05:03 on Sunday, the Artemis relay satellite acquired telemetry signals from ATV at 06:45:58 as planned. The data were received via the Artemis feeder link antenna at Redu station and were passed on to ATV-CC at Toulouse. So far, 9 passes were supported for a total of more than 6 hours of telemetry and telecommand support. All activity here has been completely nominal."

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To say we've been too busy to blog would be the understatement of the week! Your hard-working blog team apologises for the delay. Now - some really cool stuff to follow! -- Daniel

A quick update: there's a report on the ESA web portal on ATV! The highlight info is:

An absolutely perfect launch brought Jules Verne ATV into orbit after a textbook countdown and mission of the Ariane 5 launcher. All the events occurred on time, the multiple re-ignition of the specially designed Ariane 5 upper stage went off absolutely as predicted. Jules Verne ATV separated as foreseen and was injected in the correct orbit. Communication between the spacecraft and the ATV Control Centre in Toulouse confirmed that the spacecraft was responding nominally.

All navigation systems onboard, the star-trackers, the GPS system are working nominally and the solar arrays, which deployed very smoothly, are delivering full power. However the spacecraft on board computers detected a slight difference in pressure between the oxidizer and the fuel that compose the propellant. This caused the ATV to immediately switch over to the second of four propulsion chains, as it is designed to do.

Click on 'Full story' for original link and access to mp3 audio of today's press conference in Kourou.

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We're off to catch up on sleep! We'll be back on tomorrow for an update on mission progress. Thanks for your fantastic traffic and keen comments... -- the Bloggers

I also managed to get hold of Alan Thirkettle, ESA’s ISS Programme Manager, shortly after confirmation of solar array deployment. Here’s what he had to say about today’s events. 
--Maria

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After the launch, ESA's Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain, spoke at Kourou on the successful start of Jules Verne, the first ATV mission. Many thanks to our colleagues at DLR for assisting with the mp3 recording. -- Daniel

Listen to mp3 here:

I managed to get a reaction from John Ellwood, ESA's ATV Project Manager, to today's successful launch of Jules Verne ATV. (Click 'Full story' to read...)
--Maria

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A quick, final report from ESA's Santa Maria station: everything went great! Gerhard Billig, from ESOC here in Darmstadt, was at the station this AM and he told me that telemetry was successfully downloaded during both passes. You can hear his telephone report below. -- Daniel 

Listen to mp3 here: