PARIS (AFP) - - Europe's brand-new robot space freighter received final clearance to dock with the International Space Station (ISS), officials at the European Space Agency announced Wednesday.


The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), named the Jules Verne after the French pioneer of science fiction, will make its first attempt to link up to the orbiting space station on Thursday at 1441 GMT, said ESA management.

"We have proven that Jules Verne's systems are safe, reliable and ready to dock to the Station," said John Ellwood, the ATV's project manager.

"Everyone has worked very hard to get to this point, and we have also proven that the team on the ground is fully ready for tomorrow's first attempt," he added.

ESA mission control in Toulouse, southwestern France, put the vehicle through two test runs, one on Saturday, the other Monday, which passed off without a hitch.

If Thursday's first attempt at docking does not succeed then the ESA has pencilled in a second attempt for Saturday.

The Jules Verne is a freighter weighing nearly 20 tonnes. Launched on March 9, it is designed to dock automatically with the Russian-made module Zvezda, one of the earliest components of the ISS, an orbital outpost in space.

It carries 7.5 tonnes of water, food and other essentials.

Designing and building it has cost ESA 1.3 billion euros (2.01 billion dollars). Four more ATV cargo ships are in the works, with their assembly and launch each costing just over 300 million euros.

Mastering automatic-docking technology is considered a key to assembling spaceships in orbit for long-term missions, such as to Mars.