At 7:47 pm EDT on Tuesday, Arianespace successfully launched the Automated Transfer Vehicle Georges Lemaître to the International Space Station. The ATV is currently in orbit and is scheduled to dock with the station on August 12.
On board the Georges Lemaître are seven tons worth of fuel, food, supplies, and scientific experiments for the International Space Station. Additionally, over the next few days, the ship will fly underneath the ISS to test new rendezvous sensors that may be used on future spacecraft. (You can read more details about it in a post by FORBES contributor John Farrell here.)
This is the fifth ATV that the ESA will be sending to the ISS since March of 2008. It will also be the last one. Its efforts aren't lost, however. The basic design for the ATV will be modified to become the service module of the Orion space capsule, NASA's next generation manned spacecraft.
"The ATV programme is one of the most remarkable space and industrial projects ever made in Europe," ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said in a statement. "ESA, thanks to its Member States and European industry, has provided a series of advanced spaceships, launched at regular intervals of about one year. Six years after its maiden flight, the ATV is still a unique vehicle demonstrating what ESA and European industry can do in serving European cooperation and innovation. This demonstration has convinced NASA to use the service module of ATV for their future crew transportation system."
Tuesday's launch set several milestones for the European commercial space company Arianespace, as well. This was the 60th successful consecutive mission for its Ariane V rocket, and was also the heaviest payload ever launched by a European company or government agency.
This was also the sixth successful launch Arianespace has made this year, which brings the company to its halfway point for 2014. According to a tweet from Arianespace's CEO Stéphane Israël, the company is on track to having twelve launches by the end of the year. Its next launch is scheduled for August 21, where a Soyuz rocket will take two ESA satellites into orbit.
You can check out a video of the launch below: