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(FRENCH) Super rocket explodes on launch (OOPS ALERT)
BBC News ^
| December 12, 2002
| BBC News
Posted on 12/11/2002 5:11:48 PM PST by MadIvan

Europe's new heavy-lift rocket has failed on its maiden flight.
The Ariane 5-ESCA blasted off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 1921 (2221 GMT) local time and blew up three minutes later.
We have already known failures, we will know more
Jean-Yves Le Gall, Arianespace |
No explanation for the loss has yet been given by officials from Arianespace, the rocket's operators, who have scheduled a media conference for Thursday. It is not clear whether the vehicle suffered a catastrophic failure or controllers noticed something was wrong and took the painful decision to destroy the rocket.
Main stage
Wednesday's launch was the second attempt to get the Ariane 5-ESCA airborne. The first countdown on 28 November was halted because of a computer glitch.
The launcher was a beefed-up version of the vehicle that first went into full commercial service in 1999.
Wednesday's explosion was the fourth failure of an Ariane 5 rocket in its 14-mission history. The failure is likely to halt Ariane 5 flights indefinitely.
Early investigations are likely to centre on the new components of the rocket.
UK space scientist Dr Andrew Coates, who lost experiments on the first Ariane 5 failure in 1986, said: "This seemed to happen just after the solid fuel boosters would have been jettisoned but still while the main stage was burning so the most likely explanation is that something went wrong with the main stage."
Comet question
The setback will now put an enormous question mark over Europe's upcoming science mission Rosetta, designed to put a lander on Comet Wirtanen.
The Rosetta craft was due to launch on the next Ariane 5 flight on 12 January. Its eight-year journey to the comet requires the probe to be swung around Mars once and Earth twice to get it in the right position to catch the comet.
"It has quite a narrow launch window and if it doesn't go in January I don't know when it will go quite frankly," UK space technologist Dr Chris Welch said.
He speculated the mission might have to risk a flight rather than see years of research and millions of euros go to waste.
Cruel reminder
The Ariane 5 launcher lost on Wednesday was carrying a double payload: a Hotbird TM7 for the European telecoms consortium Eutelsat, and Stentor, an experimental communications satellite for the French space research institute CNES.
The debris would have fallen into the Atlantic Ocean. The satellites were likely to have been insured.
The boss of Arianespace, Jean-Yves Le Gall, immediately apologised to his two customers.
"At this stage it is too early to give precise reasons for this failure," he said.
"Our job is difficult. It's at moments like this we are cruelly reminded of it," he added. "We have already known failures, we will know more."
TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: ariane; france; holdmafromage; kaboom
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Comment #101 Removed by Moderator
Comment #102 Removed by Moderator
Comment #103 Removed by Moderator
To: Cobra64
Hey! Ill have you know that I owned a Le Car before, till it blew up.
To: MadIvan
Gays In Space!
To: Karl B
I take that as a yes. My response is "ypu're welcome." I had an uncle that died on Omaha Beach on your stinking country. 50,000 Americans died in one day in your lousy country. The French can't design anything that has wings, wheels, or props that works properly. The French Charles DeGaulle aircraft carrier dropped a prop not too long ago. BTW a little soap and deodorant goes a long way.
106
posted on
12/12/2002 5:36:18 PM PST
by
Cobra64
To: Lonesome in Massachussets
I have no idea what you mean when you say I am confusing momentum with energy. However, let's perform a little thought experiment:
Two satellites are to be launched into co-planar circular polar orbits of equal altitude. One is launched from a point on the equator, the other from the North Pole. Let us also stipulate that the desired orbit plane contains the launch site of the equatorial launch and further that the Earth is not rotating. In this case, the launch from the equator is due north (or south) and the launch from the North Pole is along the meridian containing the equatorial launch site. Both spacecraft use an identical amount of fuel to get to the target altitude and then circularize.
Now restart the experiment only this time the Earth is rotating. The Earth's rotation has no effect on the polar launch. Using your method, the equatorial launch is due east. When the spacecraft reaches the target altitude it is traveling orthogonal to the desired orbital plane. Yes, it has used less fuel to get to apogee than the other spacecraft did, but it must first fire a retrograde impulse to bring itself to a complete standstill, then fire a second impulse, orthogonal to the first, to impart sufficient momentum to provide for a circular orbit. The "free" energy the spacecreft left Earth with (due to the Earth's rotation) is orthogonal to the desired orbital plane. Instead of contributing to the final angular momentum of the spacecraft, rather it costs you fuel to get rid of it.
By the way, I have Bate. Nice book, if a bit outdated.
To: Lonesome in Massachussets
I have no idea what you mean when you say I am confusing momentum with energy. However, let's perform a little thought experiment:
Two satellites are to be launched into co-planar circular polar orbits of equal altitude. One is launched from a point on the equator, the other from the North Pole. Let us also stipulate that the desired orbit plane contains the launch site of the equatorial launch and further that the Earth is not rotating. In this case, the launch from the equator is due north (or south) and the launch from the North Pole is along the meridian containing the equatorial launch site. Both spacecraft use an identical amount of fuel to get to the target altitude and then circularize.
Now restart the experiment only this time the Earth is rotating. The Earth's rotation has no effect on the polar launch. Using your method, the equatorial launch is due east. When the spacecraft reaches the target altitude it is traveling orthogonal to the desired orbital plane. Yes, it has used less fuel to get to apogee than the other spacecraft did, but it must first fire a retrograde impulse to bring itself to a complete standstill, then fire a second impulse, orthogonal to the first, to impart sufficient momentum to provide for a circular orbit. The "free" energy the spacecreft left Earth with (due to the Earth's rotation) is orthogonal to the desired orbital plane. Instead of contributing to the final angular momentum of the spacecraft, rather it costs you fuel to get rid of it.
By the way, I have Bate. Nice book, if a bit outdated.
To: Lonesome in Massachussets
I have no idea what you mean when you say I am confusing momentum with energy. However, let's perform a little thought experiment:
Two satellites are to be launched into co-planar circular polar orbits of equal altitude. One is launched from a point on the equator, the other from the North Pole. Let us also stipulate that the desired orbit plane contains the launch site of the equatorial launch and further that the Earth is not rotating. In this case, the launch from the equator is due north (or south) and the launch from the North Pole is along the meridian containing the equatorial launch site. Both spacecraft use an identical amount of fuel to get to the target altitude and then circularize.
Now restart the experiment only this time the Earth is rotating. The Earth's rotation has no effect on the polar launch. Using your method, the equatorial launch is due east. When the spacecraft reaches the target altitude it is traveling orthogonal to the desired orbital plane. Yes, it has used less fuel to get to apogee than the other spacecraft did, but it must first fire a retrograde impulse to bring itself to a complete standstill, then fire a second impulse, orthogonal to the first, to impart sufficient momentum to provide for a circular orbit. The "free" energy the spacecreft left Earth with (due to the Earth's rotation) is orthogonal to the desired orbital plane. Instead of contributing to the final angular momentum of the spacecraft, rather it costs you fuel to get rid of it.
By the way, I have Bate. Nice book, if a bit outdated.
To: rogue yam
Yeah, yeah, I bet you all heard me the first time, huh?
Sorry...
To: shaggy eel
would be staged on french soil rather than in thier colonies Knowing the french, they certainly would have liked to launch their rockets from Paris. But unfortunately for them, the french rockets could not launch a frog into orbit, without Mother Earths angular momentum's help, which is most potent at the Equator. Colonies do have some uses.
To: Chemist_Geek
Hmmm. I can't give out too many annecdotes, but I know that just as they were getting into the Western launch markets, some site surveys found unsettling amounts of free propellant vapor in the spacecraft fueling facility, some facinating grounding (or complete lack thereof) in several areas, and less than adequate fire fighting arrangements. The Russians had some very impressive equipment and facilities in places, but the overall infastructure (particularly communications) wasn't up to western standards. In addition, preventive maintanence was kind of a lost cause with them...
Russian space engineering has always been kind of a pinnacle for them (for example, the whole concept of 'state-space' modeling came directly from early Russian rocket engineers), and the Russian approach favoring simple brute-force solutions (at the expense of efficiency, mass, and ease of repair), and paying a fair amount of attention to worst case technical concerns works well with launch vehicles. They have less of the complication for complication's sake than a typical Western design. They do tend to take rather a 'relaxed' approach to personel safety (even after several major fatal explosions, there are still viewing stands well inside the blast radius in the event of a failure). Overall, though, the Proton and especially the Soyuz have surprisingly good reliabiliy, especially considering the scary Russian planes you have to fly to get to Baikonur...
-SV
To: Karl B
. Our trade balance is positiveWhich means that the French don't have the disposible income and the corporations don't have the cash to buy anything from outside markets.
To: Karl B
To: MadIvan
HOLD MY BRIE!
Comment #116 Removed by Moderator
To: MadIvan
The symbolic irony of this all is absolutely stunning....
117
posted on
12/13/2002 10:52:42 AM PST
by
tracer
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