EADS Astrium and the German Space Agency (DLR) have proposed modifying Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle to carry three astronauts into orbit, the BBC reports.
“The ATV, which ferried just under five tonnes of supplies to the orbiting platform in April, is packed with sophisticated navigation, rendezvous and docking technologies. It also has a pressurised section that is ‘human rated’ in the sense that, once docked to the 340km-high station, astronauts can move around inside it safely in just T-shirts.
“But the ATV was not built with the intention of transporting humans across space, and a fit-for-purpose capsule would have to be developed to take the place of the current cargo section.”
If the project is approved, EADS and DLR officials believe they could conduct test flight beginning in 2013, with human flights coming four or five years later. The project will likely be considered by European space ministers at a meeting in November.
0 Responses to “Europe: Independent Human Launch System by 2017”
Leave a Reply