April 04, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 26, 1429

TOULOUSE (France), April 3: Europe’s robot freighter successfully docked on its maiden voyage on Thursday with the International Space Station, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced.

The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) hooked up with the orbiting space station on schedule at 1445GMT.

“The ATV has docked,” announced Charlotte Beskow, ATV senior engineer.

Closing in at a relative speed of six to seven centimetres per second, the module coupled automatically with the Russian-made unit Zvezda, one of the ISS’s earliest components.

The ATV – described by ESA as combining the functions of a “tug boat and a river barge” – is carrying 7.5 tons of drinking water, food and other essentials for the astronauts on the space station.

Joined together, ISS and the re-supply ship will circle Earth at a speed of 28,000km per hour at an altitude of 350km.

The Jules Verne will stay in place for approximately six months and then, loaded with refuse from the ISS, will separate and burn up in a safe, controlled descent toward Earth over the Pacific Ocean, ESA said.

Mastering automatic-docking technology is considered a key to assembling spaceships in orbit for long-term missions, such as to Mars.

The Jules Verne weighed nearly 20 tons at its launch from Kourou, French-Guiana, on March 9, using up some of its fuel in docking rehearsals in orbit.

Designed and built at a cost of 1.3 billion euros, ATV will be followed by four more cargo ships, whose assembly and launch will each cost just over 300 million euros.—AFP