A huge unmanned European transport ship capable of delivering several tons of cargo to the ISS has been cleared to launch on Sunday. The Automated Transfer Vehicle has been named Jules Verne and will be blasted into space from a modified European Ariane 5 rocket which is going to launch from Kourou, French Guinea.
The various space agencies are hoping that the ATV will be able to take over many of the supply runs that bring water, food, fuel and spare parts, particularly after NASA scraps the space shuttle program in five years.
Depending on the life span of the vehicle, the European Space Agency plans to build a total of five of them
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