PARIS, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Europe's second Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-2) was sent to the International Space Station (ISS) by an Ariane 5 ES rocket from Kourou, French Guiana on Wednesday night, marking another milestone for European aerospace technology.
Named after famous German astronomer "Johannes Kepler," ATV-2 is 10 meters high with a diameter of 4.5 meters and weighs over 20 tonnes, the heaviest payload ever launched by Europe.
Developed by the Europe Space Agency (ESA), ATV Johannes Kepler is the first operational ATV. It combines an autonomous free-flying platform, a manoeuvrable space vehicle and a space station module when docked. It will be days before it docks with the ISS automatically.
Four solar wings that can unfold to a span of 22 meters will provide energy for the automated vehicle with sophisticated navigation systems, collision-avoidance system and a Russian docking system.
Containing a 45-cubic meter pressurized module, ATV-2 is three times larger than the Russian Progress and thus can deliver about three times the cargo load, which amounts to over 7 tonnes.
Before leaving the ISS in June, it has four main tasks: providing propellant dry cargos, raising the orbit of the ISS periodically by ATV's own thrusters, moving the ISS out of the way of potentially dangerous space debris and taking away wastes including unwanted hardware and liquid waste from the station.
ATV Johannes Kepler is the second in a series of five spaceships developed by Europe for the ISS. The first European ATV, named after French science fiction writer Jules Verne, was launched to the ISS in March 2008 from the Guiana Space Center.
ATV-1 was around the same size of ATV-2 but weighed less at launch. It successfully delivered 4.6 tonnes of resupplies to the ISS in its over six months' flight before being de-orbited over the Southern Pacific Ocean and burned up in the atmosphere.
Launched since 1998, Europe's ATV program has established an industrial team led by the Astrium Space Transportation with partners from 10 European countries.
Announcing the launch was successful, Arianespace Chairman Jean-Yves Le Gall on Wednesday branded it as the success for Europe as a whole and also for the European space industry.
From the liftoff of ATV-1 in 2008, the ESA has spent 1.3 billion euros (1.76 billion U.S. dollars) on the five-stage ATV program running to 2015. Previous reports said each ATV would cost 300 million euros (405 million dollars) from production to launch.
According to the ESA, ATV-3, named after Italian physicist and spaceflight pioneer Edoardo Amaldi, is scheduled to be launched in late 2011 or early 2012.
