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Bon jour.
Uh.
This is I would talk to you
on a very small experience
as a counter center
manager of the ATV which is the
supply vehicle to the Space
Station. But before starting I wanted to say
a big merci
to all the
guys who presented before me and
made this possible.
So
uh I will present you the
uh the ISS
operations concept seen from the European
point of view and then somewhat on the
ATV "Jules Verne" mission.
"Jules Verne" was the first ATV. And then
while on the ops teams
the challenges of the ATV-CC operations,
and the lessons learned. It is only seen
from the operational point of
view because I was only in charge of the
operations.
Space activity, space job is great and
operations is much better.
That's my point of view but something
I also heard yesterday.
So the European Space Agency
(ESA) is in
charge of uh
I take that out
is in charge of the development and management of
the European participation
of the International Space Station.
It is a single
interface to
the other ISS partners.
But in fact it is a lot of countries
behind that. And
there is a tremendous contribution
of the Columbus laboratory
which is a permanent modular space
station. And the ATV which is a supply
vehicle. In fact it is a barter
it just provides services
to the Space Station.
In term of cargo delivery and
[ inaudible ] support just to
participate to the cost of
of transportation.
And the ISS operation concept is
based on architecture
where each partner is in charge of
operating its own facilities
and to set [ inaudible ]
within Europe.
Scientific users operations centers distributed
amongst most of the countries.
And the ATV control center
is operated by
and developed by CNES in Toulouse.
And the
Columbus Laboratory is operated by
DLR
near to Munich. And as you can see
this is a typical non
technical system of engineering.
And particularly in Europe
we are confronted to that
everyday. So
I like to, I just wanted to
show you yeah
Toulouse on your website
in fact and here it is
Toulouse, ATV control center
in Toulouse. And you see
all the towns
and parts of the world
involved in the ISS operation.
So"Jules Verne" mission
launched by
[ inaudible ] from Kourou.
It was a premiere because its
heaviest vehicle ever launched by
EIN and the mission itself
was a re-ignition of the last stage
and the reputation
of the last stage for safety reasons.
Then we have a free
flying vehicle.
Then we have a docking
a docking on the Russian side of the Space Station.
In fact we are using
the Russian port which is in the
axis of the Space Station.
Then we have
becoming a permanent modular of the Space Station
where
crew can go in where also
having proper safety support for the
Space Station we stay docked up to six
months. And then we have
destructive re-entry
no return capability.
And for the first flight in fact we had
to make several
approaches and demonstrate the safety vis a vis
of the space station so we had
to make in fact
three rendezvous attempts.
Two was only optimal
for demonstration purposes and we made
we flew
around the Space Station.
And then at last we docked to the
Space Station.
So the operation team
in fact we had teams in
Toulouse. People from
CNES, people from ESA
and also people of flight
segment around.
130 engineers
were working in the operation in Toulouse.
But we were also interfacing
I think it was a premiere because
the two main control centers of the
ISS were also
active during our operation.
Moscow of course because we
docked on the Russian side and
used Houston for the overall safety.
And to give the go for the
the different phases.
And we also for docking we interfaced directly with
with the ISS crew throughout
the rest of the time we were interfacing via CapCom.
We are also interfacing with Vienna
Space Center in French Vienna.
The Columbus Control Centre because it is
also in charge of all the communication
um
for
the European ISS operation and
ARTEMIS satellite we
were also using Tedris satellite
but via Houston.
So challenges.
Premiere for Europe
And it was very first time that
we had active participation
to the Space Station and also it was
the first automatic rendezvous with
optical navigation ever performed.
The mission changed it was 4 months
mission to be launched in 2003
at the beginning.
Eventually we launched on March
2008.
At we also should have done
docked directly to the Space Station but we had to
cope with a shuttle launch and the
a lot of progress operation also.
So we had to go into a parking phase
in front of the space station just to wait
that we can
dock. And it was
Endeavor.
Re-entry
during the mission itself because we didn't
use a lot of propellant we can't
extend the duration of the mission
and make reboot of the Space Station.
Especially at
last for the re-avoidance manifest.
So just to show you the
type of schedule
we have here on this axis
you have the date of the
of the prediction maybe
and the launch date and you see that
from 2004 onwards
we stay parlay to
time which was progressing, which means
that we were at less than 1 year
of the launch date
for more than 4 years.
So we had to manage the
teams and keep them motivated.
Which was one of the
challenges.
At the end we fulfilled all of our mission objectives
No operation,
no mission was delayed because of
operator error.
Also after that it was the first
ATV we were at 3 years
with ATV II
which stayed docked to the Space Station
from now on we'll have one ATV
per year. So we had
to analyze to go through
a complete knowledge management
and lessons learned exercise for the
operation and to improve
the operation and make them safer
for the next ATV.
But
due to in person qualifications
the vehicle itself will not evolve
as we would have wished.
Uh
Lessons learned on why I think it will
it work out try to keep
it short. So
first of all from the very beginning
we established strong
links between ESA, CNES and the ISS partners.
ISS partners seen from
us is you, the
Russian mainly
and this is
was possible because France
has very strong links with
Russia.
Jean-Loup Chretien I think was the first Western
spaceonaut to fly
on the
USSR,
on the USSR station in
'82 and this
allowed us to very strong links
and also of course we used Houston.
And this was a major fact of the
success. And what I think
very important its system
validation test. We had
validation test in 2003.
Which means
4 and a half years before the launch
but it was the first step
when we had something
concrete. People working on
the control center since '97
could eventually
dialog with the vehicle
itself. And this was
real help to keep the team motivated
because we had something concrete
to do.
Also we had test, test
anytime we had an
evolution
uh we could not avoid
we had to do a test
on an independent configuration
and uh we so
test, test, test, okay.
Also we had very good
trainings of the teams with
structured training
and something learned from the
from you and the way you
perform your operation
was independent training instructor.
And very, very organized so
qualification exercise validated
jointly by
ESA and CNES.
And also for the
and we also had important simulation
exercise with partners
we had at most
100 people come
for qualification tests
altogether so it was really important.
Including during
the operations themselves we had
a joint simulation
including crew to prepare the
undocking of the ATV.
And to minimize the risk
we had all the development
team and the ops preparation team
involved in the operation during the
whole mission because a lot of knowledge
was not written down.
So
and this essentially
was written
uh 1 years ago.
So its not a few years same message
as yesterday's because
I think we are
on the same
wavelength. So keep
key personnel involved in the early phase
for 12 years same guys
at key positions
knowing and having the
expertise on all the aspects of the
flight.
Excellent team spirit
built during the project
This allowed us
to overcome the difficulties, the complexities
of the ATV, of the operations.
The problems during the operation.
A very intense operational period
and after docking
nothing.
A dormant mode is what is called when the ATV
is docked but to also cope
with that.
And something which is
important in fact
nine seconds after launch the
propulsion system
switched off.
It switched also to
the [ inaudible ] and we had to stop the operation
so otherwise we went into survey mode.
And
all the teams
the experts from industry, from
ESA, ESA team,
NASA team
present during the operation on site.
And we had to find a solution
to use all
the best of our knowledge to find
solution. And we did it but
thanks to that
from this time onward
we had no more teams.
We had one single team with expertise.
And
this allowed us
really to fulfill the mission. So once again
what's important to have -
one team.
So to conclude our
I think that international
cooperation is the real way forward.
It is where we all
have to go and I like this picture
so it is taken
from the shuttle so the shuttle is not on the
picture but nevertheless.
You have the HTV
cargo maker.
Which was moved from the docking port
to this port by the Canadian
arm. You have the
Russian vehicles.
So you have 1 Progress and 2 Soyuz.
You have the European
cargo vehicle. You have the
European laboratory.
You have the Japanese laboratory. You have
US and Russian [ inaudible ].
And I think here we have
what
the mock up of our future.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]