During the early 1990's, the space world will enter an exciting phase of man's permanent presence in space: that of space station assembly and operation. Because of the heavy cost of such a program, any attempts to reduce the price must be considered seriously. Among them, the operational means costs are of utmost importance and against the exclusive Shuttle system utilization, automatic launchers, like the future European heavy-lift ARIANE 5, may be preferable to support the International Space Station reducing the number of Shuttle launches. This would also avoid basing all the assets on an unique launcher. However, such use of automatic classical launchers like ARIANE 5 requires the development of a propulsion system to bridge the gap between the launch orbit, and the final placing in orbit, able to perform orbital transfer, phasing waiting period, rendezvous and docking manoeuvres. That is the ARIANE transfer vehicle mission. This paper summarizes the major results of a comprehensive study performed for the European Space Agency (ESA) within the COLUMBUS studies program.
Ariane transfer vehicle (ATV) to supply space station
Die Ariane-Faehre zur Versorgung von Raumstationen
AIAA-Papers ; Jul ; 1-8
1987
8 Seiten, 12 Bilder, 3 Tabellen
Conference paper
English
Ariane transfer vehicle (ATV) to supply Space Station
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