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From: karn@petrus.UUCP (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Ariane destroyed
Message-ID: <536@petrus.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 21:54:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: petrus.536
Posted: Fri Sep 13 21:54:42 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 17:39:24 EDT
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 17

> I just heard that range safety officers of the European Space Agency had to
> destruct an Ariane launcher (with payload) after a guidance failure.

I've only seen the wire reports, but they said that there was a loss of
chamber pressure in the third stage shortly after ignition. The range
safety destruct command was given several minutes later when it appeared
that the launcher might fly over inhabited territory. This was the first
manually-commanded destruct of an Ariane; the first failure (L-02) blew
itself up and the second (L-5) simply dropped into the Atlantic Ocean.

It is of course too soon to know what happened, but the last Ariane failure
(L-5) also occurred during the third stage burn. That one was caused by a
turbopump failure, and this one looks very similar.

This is the launch that the French Prime Minister decided to watch in person.

Phil