CANADA: In the end, Europe’s fifth and final space station freighter went out in more of a fiery blaze than with the “big bang” of its namesake.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) 5, christened the “Georges Lemaître” after the Belgian priest and astronomer whose work led to the Big Bang theory of the universe’s origin, was intentionally destroyed as it plunged back into the Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday
The unmanned spacecraft, the last of its type, came to its end at 1:11 p.m. EST (1811 GMT).
The re-entry came a day after the ATV left the International Space Station (ISS), where it had been docked since last August. Launched on July 29, 2014, ATV-5 logged a total of 186 days in space.
Unpacked of its 7 tons of supplies and reloaded with 2.4 tons of trash, the “Georges Lemaître” fulfilled its mission, including using its thrusters to readjust the altitude of the station to compensate for atmospheric drag, re-boosting to avoid debris and, in a first for an ATV last month, lowering the outpost’s orbit in preparation for the arrival of the next cargo spacecraft.
Future visiting vehicles will not include the European ATV. Russian Progress vehicles, U.S. commercial Cygnus and Dragon freighters and Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) will resupply the space station going forward.
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