The spacecraft was monitored around the clock

Astrium and subcontractor engineers and Bachisio Dore, the ESA ATV manager of Assembly Integration & Verification (in the middle) have been monitoring the spacecraft round the clock, seven days a week. Inside the Large Space Simulator (LSS), Jules Verne, the first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), was put under the toughest simulated conditions of space vacuum, freezing temperatures and burning Sun radiation.