spacetoday.net: ATV reenters as ISS preps for new crew

Posted: Sun, Nov 3, 2013, 1:02 PM ET (1802 GMT)
ATV-4 in flight (ESA)

A European cargo spacecraft that undocked from the International Space Station earlier in the week reentered on Saturday, as the station made preparations for the arrival of three new crew members. The Automated Transfer Vehicle 4 (ATV-4), also known as Albert Einstein, reentered the Earth's atmosphere and broke up as planned over the southern Pacific Ocean at 8:04 am EDT (1204 GMT) Saturday. ATV-4 had undocked from the station on Monday, four and a half months after arriving at the station. The undocking freed up a docking port on the station's Zvezda module, and on Friday three ISS crewmembers moved the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft from the Rassvet module to the Zvezda module on a 21-minute flight. That maneuver frees up the Rassvet port for the arrival of the Soyuz TMA-11M carrying three new ISS crewmembers, Rick Mastracchio, Mikhail Tyurin, and Koichi Wakata. That spacecraft is slated to launch from Kazakhstan on Thursday morning and dock with the ISS six hours later.