ATV-2 "Johannes Kepler "

European Automated Transfer Vehicle

The second Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-2) from the European Space Agency (ESA) was successfully launched on Feb 16, 2011 from Kourou, French Guiana in South America, after a 24 hr delay due to technical problems. The booster that carried the ATV-2 was an Ariane V ES Flight 200. This flight was the milestone 200th launch for an Ariane rocket since 1979.

This second ATV cargo vehicle is named "Johannes Kepler " as a tribute to the celebrated German astronomer and mathematician. Kepler is best known for discovering the laws of planetary motion. The ATV is an unmanned automatic vehicle that provides pressurized cargo, water, air, nitrogen, oxygen and attitude control propellant. It also removes waste from the station and re-boosts it to a higher altitude to compensate for the atmospheric drag.

For this mission, the ATV-2 had a different thermal blanket configuration as compared to ATV-1. During the ATV-1 mission, some of the insulation blankets became loose during flight to the ISS, so ESA changed "Johannes Kepler" design to one that had 16 attachments per blanket. The AXM version for this ATV papermodel reflects that change as well. This model was made possible from sources obtained from photos of the real ATV-2 from the ESA website. This model is available as a free download on both 1:144 and 1:100 scales. The instruction manual is the same from ATV-1.

Enjoy the photos and the model!

Top view	Bottom view
Right side view	Left side view
Aft view

ATV-2 "Johannes Kepler " docked to the Zvezda module

Source: ESA website

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