ATV Georges Lemaître

The ATV Georges Lemaître was a cargo spacecraft used by the European Space Agency (ESA) to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Named after the Belgian priest and physicist Georges Lemaître, who proposed the Big Bang theory, the ATV was designed to transport scientific equipment, food, and other necessities for astronauts aboard the ISS. It could also perform automated docking and provide reboosting for the station’s orbit. Operational from 2008 to 2015, it successfully completed five missions, enhancing international collaboration in space exploration and supporting ongoing scientific research in microgravity.