SPACE WIRE
Ariane-5 rocket launch aborted
KOUROU, French Guiana (AFP) Nov 29, 2002
A 10-tonne Ariane-5 rocket that was to lift off for its inaugural flight with two satellites Thursday failed to take off from the launch pad in French Guiana after problems with its Vulcain engine.

The countdown had been flawless but the rocket failed to take off at the end of the countdown.

The cryogenic arms providing hydrogen and oxygen to the launcher failed to operate properly, causing the countdown to be stopped, Arianespace CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall said.

Another attempt to launch the rocket will not be made for "several days" a disappointed Le Gall told reporters after the aborted launch.

"Tonight we will empty the launcher, bring it back to the final assembly building. Tests have already begun to assertain the sequence of events in this incident in order to restart launch preparations as soon as possible," he said.

He said that the actual launch had not been aborted, though witnesses seeing some combustion from burners on the ground may have thought so.

The countdown procedure was automatically stopped before triggering the ignition sequence of the main stage's Vulcain engine.

The two satellites and the launch vehicle and all the ground equipment were said to be "in a safe mode".

The rocket was carrying Hotbird TM7 for the European telecoms consortium Eutelsat and Stentor, an experimental communications satellite for the French space research institute CNES.

Ariane 5-ESCA is a modified version of the Ariane 5, taking its payload capacity from 5.9 tonnes to a massive 10 tonnes in order to accommodate larger satellites and combining several of them in a single launch, thus substantially reducing costs.

It includes several new or improved components that have never been tested in a mission before, including beefed-up solid boosters and a modified main-stage engine.

The new launchers place the European Space Agency (ESA) into head-to-head competition with Boeing and Lockheed Martin of the United States.

Boeing launched its new Delta 4 on November 20, while Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 made its maiden flight on August 21.

The trio form the vanguard of the most powerful generation of rockets to go into space since the mighty Saturn V which hoisted the Apollo astronauts to the Moon.

Their genesis dates from a decade ago, when the market for satellite launches was booming and geostationary telecoms satellites, which account for the biggest market sector, started to become bigger and heavier.

Analysts say the launch market has shrunk in recent years, partially as a result of the bursting of the telecoms bubble.

That has left surplus capacity in satellite transponders as well as vast amounts unused fibre-optic cable, the alternative to satellites for transmitting big data streams.

The launch slump is likely to last until 2006 until the generation of satellites launched in the 1990s begins to age and needs replacement, according to a Paris-based consultancy, Euroconsult.

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