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Uprated "10-ton" Ariane 5 Fails
Soft writes "The latest version of the European Ariane 5 booster ("ESC-A") has failed on its first launch. Liftoff was good up to booster separation but the core stage shut down one minute afterwards or so. The rocket was supposed to lift ten metric tons (22,000 lb) to geostationary transfer orbit, versus 6.7 for the previous Ariane 5G (and 5 and 5.3 for the latest Atlas 5 and Delta 4). Arianespace planned to retire its other launchers (Ariane 4, Ariane 5G) in favor of Ariane 5 ESC-A. Next launch, of space probe Rosetta, was due in mid-January."
Not like the good old capitalist USA!
Oh wait, all our space stuff is run by the government? Uh, nevermind.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Aliens. TOo many rocket launch failures. They probably watched Taken and decided that we are all too stupid to go into space.
The stars are not for man.
Just be thankful it's not a NASA failure.
"I swear sir, it was a calculation error."
I consider this good news--a nation with billions of dollars invested in a project get the same results as some amatuer projects : kerplop. Gives me hope that non institutionalized entities can make it to space despite the negative publicity they get because of the trial and error process.
Can't say that they shouldn't be in space when some one this big fouls up too.
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
Hey, why can't they get this right? It isn't rocket sci- ...oh, never mind.
When the very first Ariane 5 rocket launched, it blew up on the pad, taking with it, the (uninsured) Cluster probe. The new and improved Ariane really isn't....
I think it's good that they're actually testing these things out. People make mistakes, they learn from them, and then progress in made.
"He speculated the mission might have to risk a flight rather than see years of research and millions of euros go to waste."
Kudos to them for keeping at it, at least. Too many space missions/projects are canned after a few failures. If we're going to get ANYWHERE in space in the next 100 years, we need more of this persistance. Take some risks, see what happens.
(Admittedly, I don't know how wise it would be to scrap it now and tell the gov't you just wasted a zillion bucks, but still.)
umm, the Challenger disaster or the Apollo crisis anyone?
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
When the recent Rusian launch failed it was a 'Huge Faliure', 'A Terrible Blow'. etc.. Admitedly it was a big sattelite, but the Russian's success rate in space is better than anyones. This makes the ESA look pretty stupid.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
There were two satellites on board, a Hotbird TM7 spacecraft, which would have served TV and music. It was supposed to replace Hotbird 3 at 13.0EL, though now that obviouosly wont happen.
Also the Stentor spacecraft was on board, this satellite was equiped with six Ku transponders, and was destined for 11.0WL.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
space junk no longer refers to articles that make it into space - it now includes failed rockets that are junk
That's the fifth failure in 14 launches for them and it comes at the same time Russia is stating it can't fulfill all of it's missions to the ISS. Or is it that the Russian missions won't fulfill the ISS?
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
He was a great speaker, his lecture was actually really funny in places. He joked about how rockets, by nature, tend to explode (just look at the early Chinese rockets centuries ago), so this one was really just fulfilling its mission prematurely. My favorite line was something like:
Am I missing something here? I mean, we managed to send a bunch of guys over to the moon over 30 years ago with the combined processing power of today's toasters, yet now we have a 33% failure rate on the latest technology, computer designed craft and all that experience?! What are they using cheap taiwanese chipsets and Fujitsu hard drives in these things or something?
/. just hard an article about modern consumer goods being unreliable when compared to items from 5 years ago. Looks like the space agencies are following the same path...
Ironic that
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
From:i ndex.ht ml ......"
- 02s.html ......"
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v157/
".... Arianespace has scheduled a news conference for 1300 GMT (8 a.m. EST) Thursday to provide information on the mishap.
So we get more details tomorrow.
From:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/launchers
".... Wednesday's flop could jeopardize Arianespace's dominant position on the commercial satellites market. The Ariane 5-ESCA is the European consortium's latest weapon in its battle with Boeing and Lockheed Martin of the United States for domination of the world satellite launch market.
It appears the Ariane 5 has proven to be one troubled rocket. It appears the US companies (Lockheed-Martin and Boeing) have gotten on track again with their new redesigned Atlas and Delta launchers. Actually, I think it is fun to some kind of space race again, even if it is just to orbit.
Sounds like they're using Emacs (ESC-A in Emacs does the same thing as the HOME key does: beginning of line).
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
No, not all our "space stuff" is government, such as Pegasus, and most of the projects are run by contractors. NASA just picks the worng, er, right programs to fund. Someone quipped that while most agencies have a public relations dept., NASA is a public relations dept. that happens to have an agency. In other words, politics.
It should be noted that our arms race gave a huge boost (ha-ha) to the space program that came as a very heavy price. Yes, I'm glad we got some peaceful dividends from ICBM work, but this could have been achieved more cheaply, as with the Ariane.
I wouldn't be too quick to pick a winner by political system or nationality. The Ariane is quite the success story, and now the Russians are picking up some significant American contracts with their wonderfully reliable booster, and it looks like the Chinese will in time get it together. The overall payload delivery system will ultimately be quite international -- as any non-jingoistic capitalist would want it to be, competition will spur innovation and lower price. Also, as a peacenik I would be delighted to see everyone preoccupied with getting stuff into orbit and leaving it there, not dropping it on someone else.
That said -- I will admit feeling a little twinge each time the American space program shrinks one little bit more. Living here, we all have it as just a bit of our pride, silly or not. Same for passenger jets.
I'm sure she just has a Gland problem. It's not Ariane's fault she's that heavy.
;)
hrm.. maybe I should read the post.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
nah, it just doesn't sound right.
Repeal the DMCA!
... was due to re-used software code from the Ariane 4 program, except that some values that the soft was supposed to handle were WAY bigger than during the (near perfect, by the way) Ariane 4 program. It was a plain overflow issue... The worst comes: the issue was known and documented, but somehow forgot during the upgrade from V4 to V5...
;))
Anyway, it's pretty sad (AND NOT DUE TO THE USE OF THE METRIC SYSTEM, for you US fellows
System.out.println("coucou");
Actually, the correct spelling for metric is tonne, not ton. And a metric tonne is just a simplification of a commonly used weight. Kind of like an acre is 4840 square yards. Just is easier to say and deal with.
.sig: It's what's for dinner.
In europe, most of the major aerospace companies are actually government owned, and there arent very many of them as a result.
-
Humm... do you really know what you are talking about? I think you are just expressing what people whose interest is money thinks. Quiet franckly not everyone is money driven. Life show me that there is no such things as one size fits all. I think your comments do have so truth in it but are not relevant to the current failure of Ariane. If you are a little bit involved in any space related programs (I am am involved with several NASA projects) you will learn that even though we have done a lot of progress in this area since the program started, we are still like infants experimenting. It is true for both the US and Europe and any failure should remind us how much will still have accomplish and how much we already did accomplish.
Related to this story.
Actually, all of our (American) unmanned rockets are launched on Lockheed and Boeing vehicles. The government owns the launch sites but I seem to recall recently that even that has changed with one of the pads at KSC being purchased by someone. The space shuttle is maintained by a Boeing/Lockheed conglomerate under contract with NASA. And many of our space probes are built at least jointly in cooperation with industry. NASA is the beurocracy (don't mean that negatively) who pays for and manages these programs.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
The Canadian Space Agency is just as bad, if not worse.
I was really excited when I got employed by them a few years back, and I have some great memories, but I just cannot work for a organization whose largest department is "communications" or more correctly "stickers, posters, and advertising."
The most aggravating thing about the space agency I found while I was working for them was the fact that they heralded every little success they've had and didn't pay attention to the people who were actually accomplishing work and doing stuff of use.
The public doesn't like experiments as much as giant big useless toys that the engineers send to space. It was quite sad really. That's why I left after a short while.
I may one day go back (or go work for the Canadian Arrow, if they get anywhere), but I just remember how disappointed I was when my illusion of the space agency was shattered by the realization of how much of that space agency goes towards advertising and promotion of itself.
~ kjrose
Its like the old joke...
In heaven....
The French are the chefs....
The Germans are the engineers...
The British are the policemen...
The Italians are the lovers...
And the Swiss organize everything.
In hell...
The British are the chefs...
The French are the engineers...
The Germans are the policemen...
The Swiss are the lovers...
And the Italians organize everything.
(BTW, this was a french made rocket)
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
A metric ton is 1000 kilograms. It fits nicely into the International System, where multiples of 10 are used. The question is not why there is a metric ton, the weird thing is why there is an Imperial ton? How about an Imperial meter, measuring 40 inches? Or an Imperial hour -- oh, sorry...
Perhaps the European Space Agency should forget rockets, and use an X-4000 Launch Aparatus. Those don't explode.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Kourou is to Kennedy as Toulouse is to Houston
Everyone writing software for a living should read the Ariane 5 Failure Report: Ariane5.html
and the description of the Mars Pathfinder "reset" problem: pathfinder.html
Another good study to read covers the loss of the Mars Polar Lander: marsreports.html
NASA does not manage the ELV (expendable launch vehicle) programs, such as Atlas, Delta and Pegasus. These are run and funded by private companies. NASA's involvement is limited to contracting for launch services, just like any other customer, and providing limited launch support from its ground and space network of tracking stations/satellites.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I mean... all of us here at /. could probably do a better could, er, code, review than whoever did that one.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
fscking brainfarts.
There was nothing wrong with the software, as long as it was being used on an Ariane-4. The problem was that the software was not properly modified and tested before being used on Ariane-5. The flight profile of the Ariane-5 was significantly different than the Ariane-4, which caused the software to fail. Think of it as reusing the engine controller from a 2.0 liter engine on a supercharged 3.0 liter engine, without revisiting the assumptions made about engine characteristics in the original software.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
No, of course, NASA does not manage the ELV programs. Just try to get one manager from one of those companies out of the USA to discuss technical matters with a foreign customer. It can't be done, not after 911. The US federal government must approve any such discussion, under the ITAR (international trade on arms regulations). Never mind it's a commercial satellite, it stil falls under ITAR. And contracting services is what I meant with "pay for are the operative words". All those "private" companies would never have survived without heavy subsidies from the NASA and the US armed forces.
History says that you should never put your satellite on the first launch of a new launch vehicle, or the first launch of a substantially modified launch vehicle. The odds are that your satellite will need an underwater tracking beacon.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
No offense, but I would have been disillusioned the moment I found out Canada had a space agency.
What exactly is thier mission, aside from the aforementioned "stickers - posters - advertising". The only things I can recall Canada being involved in spacewise is the shuttle arm and being a great impact zone for errant soviet satellites.
I watch in amusement as yet another euro-firework goes pop. Yet another demonstration of the uselessness of the United Socialist Bureaucratic States of Europe. Yet another demonstration of the shoddiness of that oxymoron "nationalized industry".
My prediction: in less than a decade from now, only businessmen will own space vehicles, and space will be settled by commerce, not governments. And at long last, with honest capitalism at the wheel, space tourism will become as normal, safe, available, and comparatively inexpensive as a luxury sea cruise.
...more like STOP A
(bad Sun humor)
Those numbers of successes could not be achieved even if they had ALL of the world's best scientists to run their space program at the time.
I respect the USSR space program. They had guts and gusto. Sputnik alone was a miraculous achievement. But please. This just looks ridiculous.
I would consider their numbers to be extremely, extremely suspect.
Erm, no.
uprated is jargon meaning 'more powerful'
TODO: Something witty here...
That's what the Challenger astronauts must have thought, too ...
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
Normally the transfer from leo to geostationary orbit is handled by rocket motors on the satellite itself. The russian rocket did not appear at this time to have caused the recent Astra failure instead the rocket motor on the satellite itself failed catastrophically (ie blew up).
Houston, we fart in your general direction!
We're launching all our satellites on Yemeni SCUDs.
thats the first funny and logical one of those ive read on slashdot. Most of them are just stupid. You guys ain't got nothing on fark...
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I'm sure they do have a good amount of telemetry, and will be able to release more details about the failure.
:)
But why did they blow it up? As soon as some system on board or on the ground detected whatever major problem it was, it triggered a self-destruct, according to the article.
Given nearly half a billion euros' worth of payload, wouldn't some sort of safe abort procedure make sense? Jettison the payload along with a big parachute?
Seems almost silly just to intentionally blow it all up -- unless they know that it's much safer to do that than risk it falling to earth intact. One of those rocket-science decisions...
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT
of the first radioactive crater.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
I almost wish I could agree, but, for example:
e lta2_delay_ 021030.html
0 2b/120602okeefe.htm
In October, a Boeing Delta 2 was severely damaged on the pad after a crane operator accidentally ripped the satellite and third stage off the top of the second stage after they were bolted together:
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/d
LockMart seems to be doing okay lately with the Atlas launches, but can we forget Mars Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander, lost to failure to convert units and and inablility of software to properly detect the ground, respectively?
And don't get me started on ISS. Too late---ISS is a massive, catastrophic failure in agonizing slow motion. Everybody at NASA is patting themselves on the back because they think they can put more than three crew members on the piece of junk after all---in 2006!: http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/20
If you want to see how much the US space program values intelligence and ingenuity, ISS is your answer. A few unmanned rockets blowing up on the pad or on ascent is almost refreshing by comparison.
...'which would have served TV and music',
Well I'm glad that one didn't make it up there, sweet justice.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Apparently canadian cuisine is called "Kraft Dinner".
SPARK Ada this would never have happend.
Go static analysis!
Paul Leader
Huh. If the core was going to shut down like that, it should have been named the L1-A.
Best wishes,
Mike.
One of the main customers for satellite launchs is the military. Something as simple as google search should be able to pick this up (e.g., search for "ariane military")...
Military percentages of various orbit profiles
Low-earth-orbit ~15% (rest is mostly comm stuff)
Medium-earth-orbit ~65% (bulk of military stuff)
Geosync-orbit ~10% (rest is tv/telephone/dbs)
Things might be skew a bit when the ESA starts launching Galileo (the GPS competitor), but the direction depends on your view of dual-use technology. However, they don't call it the military-industrial complex for nuthin' (military contracting is just as popular in europe as it is in the US)...
Hey, "The First One Always Blows Up" isn't really that bad of a record to have, comparitively speaking. I mean, look at microsoft: the first *two* versions of each of their products always waste millions of dollars and explode messily when you try to use them, and most people's reactions is to just kind of excuse them for it and wait for version 3..!
^_^
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
This is my continual frustation as well... I'm a huge follower of space "stuff". Half the time if you were to ask an American "When was the last Shuttle launch" they'd look at you and say "We're still launching those things???" However, you ask them when the Challenger exploded and they'll give you a rambling "I was in the 3rd grade and Mrs. Shumacker ran in crying" (much like the "Where were you when kennedy was shot?" sorta thing... It really pisses me off to no ene that people have no interest in exploring the stars!!!
:-(
As for unmanned lifting systems, the Atlas and Delta systems have been working great. I'm sure that they'll get the kinks worked out of the Ariane 5 system, but when an Ariane 5 lifts without a hitch, it won't even be reported on the news...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Yes, the Proton puts 20 tons into LEO but the Ariane 5 puts 10 tons into GTO (Proton : 2.4 metric tons) which is the geostationary transfer orbit, a high elliptic orbit with an apogee near the geostationary orbit.
You can of course construct satellites with enough fuel and strong enough engines to lift itself from LEO to GEO, but the common approach is to let the launcher "shoot" its payload into GTO so the sattelite only needs a small kick engine and few fuel to accelerate to geostationary orbit.
And the Proton launch you mentioned was a failure of the launcher - instead of putting the satellite into GTO it released it in a low "parking orbit" (LEO) since the upper stage ("block DM") failed to ignite for a second burn. The satellite did not blew up or anything like that. See here for more details.
In 2001 dollars, that would be around $7.20 per day. Now it doesn't seem like Coke or chip money any more, that's almost half a tank of gas, or a sit-down lunch at a halfway decent restaurant. Every day.
Put it in perspective. In 1965, gas went for $0.20 / gallon. McDonalds' burgers were $0.19, and so were the fries.
Keep in mind that was $0.40 for EACH person. In 1965, there was only one "average wage earner" per family, but they were supporting an average of four people. Think $1.60 per day, out of your $12.75.
And these were taxes. You don't get to say, "Hey, Uncle Sam, the kid got sick and I came up a bit short so I'm not paying for your moon shot this week." Taxes weren't optional back in 1965, either.
It was a DAMN EXPENSIVE program.
John
The fact that the rocket was found orbiting in separately but in essentially the same orbit as the satellite points to more than a failure to ignite something blew up in a limited fashion.
:-)
Also the decision to de-orbit astra 1k rather than try to move it to a geostationary orbit under it's own power points to damage to the craft.
You're right in that in this launch there was an additional booster to move the satellite to GTO - however I'm not sure whether this was provided by the russian launch service or as part of the satellite package. The russian mission controllers made a big deal out of saying the failure wasn't theirs.
I admit much of my information on how satellites reach geostationary orbit was based on earlier launches where the rocket did no more than deliver the satellite into a low orbit.
Also don't believe everything you read on a page with a starchaser banner ad on it
Block DM-3 is a standard part of the proton launcher in the used configuration. You can all it the last "stage" if you want, it's comparable to the H-10+ of the Ariane 4, the L-5 of the Ariane 5, the Centaur used on Atlas launchers and so on.
BTW: The same thing happened with Asiasat 3 five years ago.
I gave a link to that site because it was the best/first hit I found with google. You can give a link to website which tells me a different story.
And: The russians ALWAYS say, it's not their fault in the first. They also said, a submarine from another nation did collide with the Kursk.
(They have set up a commision on Dec 10 to investigate the reason for the Block DM-3 failure...)
My info on that (3-man/1-man capsule) came from a Discovery/History Channel show, I forget which. It was very inline with the excerpt below, but went more into detail about the U.S. Administration's beliefs about and reactions to the Soviet space program.
"Korolev hurriedly designed a manned 'stopgap' program called Voskhod ('Sunrise') to satisfy Khrushchev's apetite for new space spectaculars. First proposed in February 1964 (Hedrickx, 1997), Voskhod was basically a Vostok capable of carrying 2-3 cosmonauts into low Earth orbit to practise long duration spaceflight or (using additional equipment) spacewalks and dockings in space before Soyuz became available in 1966. But in order to accomodate more cosmonauts, Vostok's single ejection seat had to be removed, leaving the crew with no chance of survival if the R7 carrier rocket malfunctioned during the first 27 seconds of launch until the upper stage could fire (Harvey, 1996). Despite the huge risks, Voskhod 1 took off on 12 October 1964 with three cosmonauts on board - then a new record."
The Voskhod was touted to the world as a "new design", and was feared by the U.S. Gov't as proof that Soviet space program under Kruschev's regime . Reality was it was a gutted version of the Vostok. A political note -- Kruschev was removed as leader by the Politboro the very next day and Leonid Breshnev was his replacement. Breshnev was MUCH less interested in the "We're #1!" attitude towards space firsts than Kruschev.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.