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Final Ariane Qualification Flight Stands Ready
Kourou - October 21, 1998 - Following on from the earlier flights 501 and 502, the third and final qualification flight of Ariane 5 is set to launch from Kourou this Wednesday.Following a successful flight the Ariane 5 launch vehicle will be ready to loft commercial satellites in orbit with the precision and quality required for operational service. Once qualified, ESA and CNES will hand the system over to Arianespace, which will take responsibility for subsequent production and commercial operations. The launcher now incorporates a number of changes based on analysis of flight data from the first qualification flight, which ended in failure, and the successful second qualification flight. The flight program, which has undergone a number of functional changes since the second qualification flight. These improvements relate in particular to attitude control, flight control, guidance and navigation. The excessively high roll torque observed on Flight 502, which flight data analysis and tests on the Vulcain engine stand have now elucidated. The corrective action being taken is to modify the angular setting of the Vulcain engine turbine exhaust nozzles. The power delivered by the attitude control system has also been largely increased to counter any other disturbance torque that may occur. Moving beyond Ariane 5 qualification, many technical and economic challenges have yet to be met on the way to making the launcher more competitive still in the world market. Key demands will be to cut costs further and step up production rates. In pursuing these objectives, Ariane and Europe can build on a number of existing strengths. Ariane 5 is an advanced, new-generation launcher and the industrial structures created for production and commercial operation have already shown themselves to be effective. The Guiana Space Centre, Europe's Spaceport located in Kourou, is fully operational and is acknowledged to be one of the best launch sites in the world. Ariane 5 does moreover enjoy considerable growth potential and, with the Perfo 2000, Ariane 5 Evolution and Ariane 5 Plus programs, action is already underway to increase the new launcher's performance and expand its mission capabilities to meet market demand well into the next decade.
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