Europe's sophisticated ATV space freighter has docked with the International Space Station (ISS).

欧洲ATV太空运输船成功与国际空间站对接。

The unmanned robotic craft attached itself to the Zvezda module¹ on the rear of the platform at 22:31 GMT.

The ship is delivering new supplies of fuel, food, water, air and equipment to the ISS's astronauts.

ATV is totally automatic and used its own computerised systems and sensors² to find the station in orbit and make the connection.

At 20 tonnes, the freighter is the biggest ship servicing the station now that the US shuttles have been retired³.

Mission managers, based in Toulouse, France, oversaw⁴ the final manoeuvres but had no need to intervene.

Astronauts Andre Kuipers and Oleg Kononenko were inside Zvezda when the vehicle made its final approach. They too stood ready to order the truck to a safe distance if any anomalous⁵（异常的） behaviour was observed, but the docking proceeded extremely smoothly⁶.

In fact, the contact, which occurred over the American Samoas in the Pacific, was so gentle the ISS crew reported they hardly felt it.

The station's astronauts will need to scrub the air inside the ship before entering.

Once given the all clear, the six station residents can start to move the freighter's supplies across into the main body of the 390km-high (242 mile) orbiting post.

This ATV is the third such craft to be sent to the station by the European Space Agency (Esa), and has been dubbed⁷ Edoardo Amaldi in honour of the 20th Century Italian physicist⁸ who co-discovered slow neutrons⁹, an essential step to nuclear power.

The two previous vehicles flew in 2008 and 2011.

The trucks are part of the barter¹⁰ arrangement that Esa has with its international partners on the ISS project.

Instead of handing over cash to cover station running costs, Europe has taken on the major responsibility of platform logistics.

In return, it gets residency rights for its astronauts - one individual to spend six months in orbit, every couple of years.

Dutchman Kuipers is the current beneficiary（受益人） of that trade-in-kind.