The launching of ESA’s first automated transfer vehicle (ATV) named « Jules Verne » took successfully place on March 9th 2008 from the spaceport at Kourou.

“Jules Verne” is one of the international space station’s supply spacecraft, delivering experiments, equipment and spare parts, as well as food, air and water for its permanent crew.

SPACEBEL has contributed to the development of the ATV at two levels:

• Supply of ERC32 Target Simulators, i.e. the simulators of the on-board calculators, which are still being used in order to validate the control software on-board of the ATV.
• Participation in the realization of the approaching and docking software of the ATV with the ISS (ARP-K project).

A little bit of Belgian technology signed “SPACEBEL” flew into the Guyanese sky on March 9th 2008.