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

 Full story »

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

 Full story »

Interesting discussion going on in this thread. -- Daniel

http://webservices.esa.int/blog/post/1/47 

As per yesterday's forecast, it is raining in Kourou right now and it's expected to pour down for the rest of the day. There's also no change in the forecast for tomorrow - it remains cloudy at launch time, but with low probability of thunderstorms. The winds are also looking favourable. Summary: no concerns for launch.
--Maria

More images received from Kourou overnight. Here's my top pick below. More images are available in the ATV section of the ESA Multimedia Gallery. (Credit: ESA - S. Corvaja 2008)
-- Maria

The roll-out of the Ariane 5 ES-ATV is now set to start no earlier than 14:30 Kourou time, that's 18:30 CET (17:30 UT).
--Maria

(Extra info received - the delay doesn't have any affect on the rest of the countdown, they have 24 hours in which to finish the roll-out. Let's hope it doesn't take that long though...)