Also just received from Kourou. A few images inside the control room, and one of the press visit to view the launcher on the pad. This will be my last post for today. Back again very early tomorrow morning to follow the big event.
-- Maria

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A report received from Kourou earlier this evening...

John Ellwood, ESA's ATV Project Manager, has confirmed the 10-hour launch countdown started exactly on time at 15:00 Kourou time (19:00 CET) as scheduled. Everything is running smoothly. Dozens of specialists are already in front of their consoles in the three main control rooms at the Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

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Or in this case every 1/100th of a second counts. Tomorrow's launch is set for 05:03:04 CET - precisely. Its this kind of timing that makes all the difference. As you can see in Daniel's posting of the ascent timeline, the timing continues with this kind of accuracy, with each critical event needing to be timed perfectly... 
(click on Full story for more)


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On 8 February, ESA's mission control team at ATV-CC were working closely with their CNES partners in an intense, day-long simulation exercise ('Joint Integrated Simulation') involving all ISS partners - including MCC-H (Houston) and MCC-M (Moscow). There were NASA and ROSCOSMOS representatives at ATV-CC that day, and everyone was put through the wringer in one of the final, full-up rehersals for the ATV mission. I was able to grab some video-on-the-fly, and spoke with several members of the ESA team, including team head Alberto Novelli, Mission Directors Hervé Côme and Kris Capelle, and several of the trainers. Click on 'Full post' to access Windows and Quicktime versions of the video. -- Daniel

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Earlier this afternoon I spoke to Alan Thirkettle, ESA's ISS Programme Manager. Alan is in Kourou eagerly awaiting tomorrow's launch. With this, the third big launch for ESA within 6 months, after Node 2/Harmony in October and the European Columbus laboratory in February, he's says he going for the hattrick!

I asked Alan to describe the atmosphere at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou. He also talks about what the Jules Verne ATV launch means to him - and he explains what ATV really stands for...
-- Maria

Listen to the mp3 file here:

I just spoke with ESA's Alberto Novelli, the head of the ESA operations team at ATV-CC (ATV Control Centre), Toulouse. He gave a great update on what's happening there and on the feeling of excitement and anticipation among the ESA-CNES (French space agency) joint team. Alberto also mentioned a number of critical points that the mission control team will be monitoring during tomorrow's LEOP (launch and early orbit phase), which comes immediately after launch. (After our discussion, he also added that one critical LEOP step is the acquisition of telemetry signals, via the US TDRS relay satellite system, which occurs after separation from the booster.) -- Daniel

 Listen to mp3 audio here:

PS: We'll have a video interview including Alberto and other members of the ESA team at ATV-CC posted shortly...

Here is a compiliation of highlight timeline events for tomorrow's Ariane-5/ATV launch. Note that all times are subject to change if there is any delay, etc. Click on 'Full story' for more... -- Daniel

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As short while ago I participated in a communication loop with ESA's Franco Bonacina, Head of the Media Relations Office and DG Spokesman, who arrived in Kourou yesterday. He reported that there are no problems on the technical side with Jules Verne ATV or with the launcher. He also said the weather forecast remains the same - showers, but no concerns for launch.
-- Maria

A very interesting video! This clip shows a Russian Progress vessel approaching the ISS for docking on 7 Feb 2008 (Progress mission M-63). It was recorded at MCC-M Moscow from the Russian video docking system, with the camera mounted inside Progress. So what's this got to do with ATV? Click 'Full story' for details as well as to view the actual video. -- Daniel

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