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Ariane rocket suffers rare failure
Topic Started: 26 Jan 2018, 01:30 AM (102 Views)
skibboy
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Ariane rocket suffers rare failure

By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent

17 minutes ago

Posted Image
Everything looked fine as the rocket climbed away from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana

Europe's normally highly dependable rocket, the Ariane 5, has had an anomaly during its latest launch.

Contact with the vehicle was lost shortly after its two stages separated, about nine minutes into the flight from French Guiana.

The rocket was carrying two telecommunications satellites - one for Luxembourg-based operator SES, the other for Abu Dhabi-based Yahsat.

As yet neither spacecraft has made contact with ground controllers.

The SES satellite, called SES-14, was manufactured in the UK by Airbus at its Portsmouth and Stevenage plants.

The Ariane 5 is the workhorse of European rocketry.

It famously failed on its very first outing in 1996, and then had one more failure in 2002 before then putting together 82 flights without incident.

"We lost contact with the launcher a few seconds after the ignition of the upper stage," said Stéphane Israël, the CEO of Arianespace, the company that operates the Ariane 5 at its South American spaceport.

"Up to now our customers do not have contact with the satellites.

"We need now to know if they have been separated and where they are exactly to better analyse the consequences of this anomaly."

Source: Posted Image.com
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