ATV-5 is the last in the series to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. The fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle was launched from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on 29 July 2014. It has been named Georges Lemaître as a tribute to the Belgian physicist, father of the Big Bang theory.

After launch on an Ariane 5 from Kourou, ATV automatically navigates to a precision docking with the Station’s Russian Zvezda module. It remains attached to the ISS for up to six months before reentering the atmosphere and deliberately burning up together with several tonnes of Station waste.