27 mars 2012
Going live at 23:54
Docking with the ISS is always a momentous event for Europe’s ATV resupply craft. As well as ferrying food and equipment for the station’s 6-strong crew, its mission is also to help the ISS to stay on course.
You can watch the final ISS approach phase of the 20-tonne monster live during the night of 28-29 March on this website. Events will also be followed on Twitter by an international audience of 50 ‘tweeters’ invited by CNES and ESA to the ATV Control Centre (ATV-CC) at the Toulouse Space Centre. The tweetup will begin at around 18:30 when the audience will be able to meet ATV mission specialists.
The live web transmission will begin at 23:54 CET, with docking scheduled at 0:33. The ATV-3 Edoardo Amaldi was orbited by an Ariane 5 ES launcher from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana on 23 March. It will remain berthed to the station for 6 months at most and will burn up with its return cargo of waste from the ISS when it re-enters the dense layers of Earth’s atmosphere at the end of its mission.
Twitter account for the tweetup: @Spacetweetup
Hashtag: #atvtweetup