Crucial Terma Role in Europe's ATV

(March 7, 2008) -- Terma has been involved in the preparations for the ATV mission in three crucial areas. The first European ATV is launched on Sunday morning, 9 March, carrying supplies for the International Space Station (ISS).

Early Sunday morning, 9 March (05.03 CET), the European Space Agency (ESA) launches the first of seven unmanned transport vehicles. The so-called Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), named after French author Jules Verne, is scheduled to lift off from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on an Ariane 5 launch vehicle.

Terma has been involved in the preparations for the mission and the development of the ATV in three crucial areas.

Firstly, in cooperation with EADS at Les Mureaux in France, Terma has defined a number of test facilities for the ATV program. The testing approach is quite complex: ATV becomes a man-rated mission as it docks with the ISS, so a high level of verification and testing is necessary compared to other unmanned space missions.

Secondly, the Operational Simulator - simulators play a crucial role in any complex space mission. The Operational Simulator is used for three main purposes:

- At the ATV Control Center (ATV CC) in CNES/Toulouse, it is used to simulate the spacecraft while all the ground-based elements are integrated and tested
- For the training of the operations team at ATV CC
- To train the crew for the docking of the ATV with the ISS at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne.

Terma was contracted by EADS in Bremen to develop major parts of the simulator - the simulation platform and many of the models.

In this project, Terma pioneered the use of a software emulation of the computer, rather than hardware. This results in an improved performance, a more accurate simulation, and lower costs. This approach has now been adopted on nearly all such simulators within Europe and elsewhere.

Finally, Terma has provided a team of experts - based at the ATV CC in Toulouse - to support CNES in the testing and qualification of the ATV CC and its ground segment. The Terma role is to provide staff to run the ATV simulator and act as training instructors for the rest of the ATV CC staff.

After four months of being an extension of the Station and loaded up with garbage, Jules Verne will separate from the ISS with the same safe procedures performed for docking, and then burn up completely during a guided and controlled re-entry high over the Pacific Ocean.

Source : Terma A/S

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