Astra 1K Communications Satellite now Space Junk

bachelor#3 writes "Astra 1K, which was to replace 3 other satellites, didn't make it. Launch services were being provided by International Launch Services. Here's a timeline, from T-minus 30 minutes onwards."

Comments

Alcatel.

[penguin_punk]

Seeing as it was made by Alcatel Space and Alcatel just axed another 10,000 jobs yesterday (or the day before?) Do you think it was a sign? I'm just a conspiracy nut.

(ddaadaataaday! wee! look at me, I'm waiting for my 2-minute-filter to wear! ladeedaa)

Iridium

[Gary Franczyk]

Thats nothing! Compare that to Iridium, which had 66 satellites that became space junk shortly after being launched. :-)

Re:Iridium

[jfroot]

Iridium is alive.. in fact I have an Iridium sat phone (Motorola 9505) sitting on my desk right now that I use to call our people who are away on ops. With Iridium it is much cheaper to call phone-phone. Landline LD to an Iridium phone is abour $10/min. whereas Iridium to Iridium is about $1/min.

WooHOo

[esac17]

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russia has failed to put a five-tonne European communications satellite properly into orbit and it will now circle uselessly until it eventually falls back to Earth, space officials said.

Nice, does that mean we will have another chance at free tacos from taco bell! ??

Re:Space Junk is like Earth Junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude you are a freakin dumbass.

Space is a LOT bigger than earth. Like 10 times bigger or something... at LEAST!

Not good.

[carlmenezes]

The second failure in 25 launches. That's a success rate of 92%? That's also a 1 in 13 chance of failure with multi-million dollar equipment.

T+plus 6 minutes. Second stage separation should have occurred, followed by third stage ignition. However, ILS has stopped its live commentary to show a video. We'll provide any additional information on the actual flight performance as it becomes available.

Problems started here maybe?

T+plus 8 minutes. Confirmation has now been received that the second stage engines shut down, the spent stage was jettisoned and the third stage has ignited. Also, the payload fairing enclosing the Astra 1K spacecraft atop the rocket has separated.

seems ok...

T+plus 10 minutes. The third stage burn should have been completed by now, followed by separation from the Block DM upper stage. However, no word has been received from ILS.

Looks like ILS noticed trouble brewing here and were trying to redeem the situation... .. ...

FAILURE. International Launch Services has announced that the second burn of the Block DM upper stage suffered an anomaly, failing to deliver the Astra 1K spacecraft into the proper orbit tonight.

It's a conspiracy!

[bcwalrus]

You can't even send a satelite to its orbit, and you're telling me that we landed on the thing called "moon"?!

A little perspective, please

[Siriaan]

You see, it goes like this: Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

Lifetime Launch Vehicle Reliability

[Rareul]

These are applicable statistics taken from: faa.gov

Table 5. Lifetime Vehicle Reliability Rates

Vehicle-----Launch Attempts----Reliability
Atlas 1 & 2------49---------------95.9%
Delta 2----------73---------------98.6%
Delta 3-----------1----------------0.0%
Ariane 4---------81---------------96.3%
Ariane 5----------2---------------50.0%
Proton----------254---------------89.4%
Soyuz-----------958---------------99.3%
Long March-------54---------------90.7%

(Source: STAR Database, October 14, 1998)

?sp

Re:Cheaper?

[Dunark]

The shuttle can't reach geosynchronous orbit, which is where the satellite is supposed to be.