IN THE late 1800s Jules Verne spun tales about space travel long before humans had ever left their planet. Now his namesake is undertaking an autonomous space manoeuvre even the great author couldn’t have imagined. At stake is Europe’s future role in international space missions and the fate of technology that could be used to explore Mars and other planets.
The European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Jules Verne automated transfer vehicle (ATV) on 9 March, with just one small glitch that has now been fixed. But the true test of its mettle comes on 3 April, when it…
