Today's space vido of the day is a collection of animations produced by the European Space Agency showing some of the elements of their Aurora Space Exploration Programme. The first animation is of the ExoMars rover landing on the planet and using the Pasteur payload, which will drill up to two meters below the surface. This is followed by animations of the Mars Sample Return mission, a manned mission to Mars (which would happen between 2025 and 2030) and a manned Moon mission (to occur between 2020 and 2025).
Earlier today the European Space Agency's Jules Verne automated transfer vehicle docked with the international space station in an automated docking sequence. A few days ago the ATV did a trial run of the docking procedure; this trial run makes up the bulk of today's space video of the day (first 8 of 9 videos in the playlist), and the last 7-minute video on the playlist is the docking itself.
Today's space video of the day looks at the largest spacecraft ever built by the European Space Agency, the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). This is actually several videos; first an ESA podcast about the ATV, then some selections from a news conference given by the ESA and NASA, and finally a CG animation (with no sound) of the mission. If all goes as currently scheduled, you can watch the launch of the Ariane 5 carrying the Jules Verne live at 3:59am GMT on March 9 (March 9, 0:59am Kourou; March 9, 4:59 am Malta; March 9, 6:59 am Moscow; March 9, 2:59pm Sydney; March 8, 10:59pm EST; March 8, 7:59pm PST) here, starting 20 minutes before the scheduled liftoff.
Today's space video of the day shows the installation of the European Space Agency's Columbus module on the international space station. The video is a time-lapse, so it goes just a little bit faster than the actual installation. Also included is some animations of the plans for installation, and it looks like those plans were followed pretty closely. I would advise watching this video with the sound off, as the music is a very annoying German elektronika piece.
A couple of days ago NASA launched the space shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-122, bringing the European Space Agency's Columbus module to its new home on the international space station. Today's space video of the day is an overview of the mission, the launch, the rendezvous pitch maneuver, and docking of the Atlantis to the ISS.
