The first European Automated Transfer Vehicle launched to the International Space Station from Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 rocket at 11:03 p.m. EST Saturday.

Solar arrays deployed as planned after two engine firings more than an hour and a half after launch. That placed the ATV in a parking orbit about 1,200 miles from the station.

The high-capacity unpiloted cargo carrier is, at almost 22 tons, the largest cargo ever launched by the Ariane 5.

This vehicle is named Jules Verne after the acclaimed French science-fiction author. It is the first of at least seven such spacecraft to be built.

The ATV can carry more than 7.5 tons of cargo. That is about three times the cargo weight carried by the Progress, the reliable Russian unpiloted cargo carrier.

The spacecraft can carry dry cargo � food and other supplies and equipment�as well as water, propellant for the station, and gases, including air and oxygen.

The Jules Verne initially was placed in an orbit a safe distance from the station, where a series of tests will be performed. Subsequent tests scheduled include two approaches to the station.

Those approaches will end in "escape" maneuvers, in part to verify the collision avoidance system. It would be used if the ATV automated docking system should fail.

The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the station in early April. It will remain there, for unloading and subsequent filling with station garbage and discards, until August. Then it will be deorbited for destruction on re-entry over the Pacific.