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First Launch of new heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket

Posted by Hemos on from the heavy-lifter dept.

obiwan2u writes "In the article Europe's super-rocket rides high, BBC talks about the Feb 12th launch of Arianespace's new bigger/better Ariane 5-ECA. The new rocket can lift multiple satellites totalling 10 metric tons (10K kilograms or about 11 olde english tons) into geosync orbit. The price will hopefully around $15K-$20K per kg. The first launch included a communications satellite and a science experiment called (I'm not making this up) SloshSat , designed to investigate the dynamics of fluids in microgravity. "

2 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Am I just out of the loop... by DemoLiter3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    hauling things to the geostationary orbit is quite expensive in general, it's almost 1/10 of distance to the Moon.

  2. Im just waiting by Striker770S · · Score: 1, Insightful

    until they stop using chemical burning rockets to escape orbit. If all the first world countries pool some money in, then we could have a space elevator. It is within our reach.

    --
    I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. - Catcher in the Rye