The Automated Transfer Vehicle or ATV is an expendable, unmanned resupply spacecraft developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). ATVs are designed to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with propellant, water, air, payloads, and experiments. ATVs can also reboost the station into a higher orbit.
Three ATVs, Jules Verne, Johannes Kepler and Edoardo Amaldi, have been launched since March 2008. ESA has contracted suppliers to produce two more ATVs to be flown before 2015. On 2 April 2012 the ESA announced that the ATV program would end after the fifth ATV is launched in 2014.
Further developments of the ATV have been studied by the European Space Agency and EADS Astrium. ESA member states decided in 2012 that the ATV would be adapted to serve as the service module of the NASA Orion spacecraft.
Read more about Automated Transfer Vehicle: Design, Development, Use, Missions, ATV Control Centre, ATV Evolution Proposals
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