The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is the biggest and most complex spacecraft Europe has ever tried to put in orbit.
The 20-tonne unmanned freighter left the Kourou spaceport at 0403 GMT, riding atop an Ariane 5 rocket.
The spectacular night launch in the South American jungle was declared a success once the ATV had separated from its booster 66 minutes after lift-off.
The news was cheered by a huge crowd of VIPs, space agency officials and representatives of the industrial teams that have worked on the development of the ship for past 11 years.
The ATV is of critical importance to the International Space Station (ISS) now that the Americans have decided to retire their shuttles in 2010. 
The ATV is the largest, completely automated rendezvous and docking ship to go to the ISS. When it attaches to the platform on 3 April, it will do so without any human assistance.
The vessel will provide the largest refuelling and waste elimination capability for the ISS; and it is the only vehicle on the current timeline that will be able to de-orbit the $100bn platform when it is retired sometime towards the end of the next decade.
The launch was a significant event for Ariane, too. The European rocket had never before lifted so big a "passenger". Its normal payload is a pair of commercial telecommunications satellites that weigh together less than 10 tonnes.
The rocket had to be specially strengthened to carry the ATV aloft.
Its upper-stage was also programmed to perform extra burns - the first to put the freighter in the correct 260km-high orbit, the second to take itself
The ATV has been dubbed "Jules Verne" for its maiden flight and is even carrying a first-edition hardback of the 19th-Century French author's book From the Earth to the Moon. It will return on a space shuttle at a later date.
The ATV will now essentially be parked in space. It must wait until the US space shuttle Endeavour has completed its forthcoming mission to the ISS before moving in to make a docking.
The ship's own computers will be in charge of the approach, employing an advanced form of GPS and, in the latter stages, optical sensors to guide itself into the correct position on the end of the Russian Zvezda module.
The ATV is the way Europe will pay for its membership of the ISS project. Four vehicles will follow this initial flight. But the European Space Agency hopes its new ship will be more than just a high-flying heavy goods lorry.
The sophisticated automated systems onboard are expected to be transferred into many more spacecraft - especially those that require automatic rendezvous and docking.
This would include any mission that went to Mars to try to retrieve rocks to bring back to Earth laboratories. The hardware that is used to lift the samples off the surface of the Red Planet would need to meet up in orbit with the propulsion unit which would carry it home. The technology for this in-orbit assembly might be derived from ATV know-how.
Cost: Total bill was 1.3bn euros (at least 4 more ATVs will be built)
RACHMAD YULIADI NASIR
Bank Muamalat Indonesia (BMI)Arthaloka : 913-22775-99
www.the-independent-news.blogspot.com
www.halamansatu.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=349&itemid=50
