Lifting the Space Station

t's the International Space Station's biggest increase in altitude to date, and, thanks to the European Space Agency's ATV Johannes Kepler, it will significantly improve the 417-tonne Station's orbital mileage through the next decade of scientific research.

During three intensive reboost manoeuvres, ATV Johannes Kepler is raising the ISS altitude from around 345 km to 380 km, where it will use far less fuel to maintain its orbit and cutting the amount of fuel that must be sent up in the coming years by almost half.

"These reboosts will improve ISS scientific exploitation enormously, since we'll need to send much less fuel into orbit, making more launch capacity available for spare parts, scientific instruments and supplies," says ESA's Nico Dettmann, ATV programme head.

Almost nothing remains of Earth's atmosphere at 350 or 400 km except faint whips of gas molecules. These are sufficient, however, to cause the Station's orbit to steadily decay due to drag unless it is periodically reboosted. Moving the Station to a higher orbit means that even fewer reboosts, using even less fuel, must be done in the future.…