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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."
Hey, why can't they get this right? It isn't rocket sci- ...oh, never mind.
"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.)
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.
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.
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.
... 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, 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...
In Socialist Europe, government owns companies. In Capitalist America, COMPANIES own GOVERNMENT!
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
In other words, one of the reasons that amatuer development is so limited is not simply cost. It's large space programs saying things like "we have experience and the finances to absorb failure, so that is why we reccomend you stay out of it. "the stars are not for man" kind of philosophy, if you get my drift. I'm not saying that it's great that something blew up, I'm saying that the it's bunk to say things like "leave this to the pros. space exploration is too complicated for civilians." or haven't you noticed, that instead of when airplanes, televisions, and computers were in the early stage of innovation, there aren't many private backers of orbital ventures. Is that a coincidence? BTW, I could really do without commenting on the moderation and have an intelligent conversation. You might almost think that moderation has any great bearing on the subjects that we discuss :)
In other words, this unmasks the myth that somehow exists that private innovators have no place in the big league of space. If billions of dollars and hundreds of scientists, plus the backing of a unified europe fails sometimes too, maybe there is hope for those who don't have as much resources but have the same if not greater desire.
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'