Europe's new heavy-lift rocket has failed on its maiden flight.
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 |
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."
Any country that can produce the Renault Dauphine can't be all good, Ivan.
Besides, in French it should be "La Car". They didn't even get the name right...
(Regíe Reneault has made some decent cars over the years -- not as many as Citroën or Peugeot, but a few.)
Arianespace's boss' boss, immediately surrendered to whoever was around. :)
I think the French Foreign Legion is doing guard duty on French Guiana.
Since countdown began, security forces have been at maximum alert. Barbed wire and electrified fences surround the Center's facilities. French soldiers man checkpoints. Backing them up are some 500 members of the French Foreign Legion's elite Third Infantry Regiment. Overhead, Legion pilots crisscross the are in ultralight aircraft, and navy patrol boats cruise offshore. Near the launch site, antennas whirl at an air force radar station manned with anti-aircraft weapons. Among other things, France is on guard against any possibility that civil strife in neighboring Surinam, which is under Libyan influence, might disrupt Ariane launches.
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..."
Hopefully, they have a backup plan. Looks like this mission will be in mothballs for awhile.
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.
All they need to do now is plan to equip the rockets with nukes aimed at the U.S., and Loral will help them troubleshoot.
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