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Space Science

First Launch of new heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket 32

Posted by Hemos 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. "
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First Launch of new heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket More

First Launch of new heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket

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  • What is it actually for? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JaxWeb ( 715417 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @08:36AM (#11666436) Homepage Journal
    This is more of a technological progression and commerial tool than a scienfic exploration unlike a lot of other projects, which I think is a shame, but in any case, this diagram [bbc.co.uk] looks very impressive.

    Just to explain where that funny sounding "Sloshsat" comes from:
    The name Sloshsat Flevo is derived from: 'Slosh' for the movement of liquid, 'sat' for satellite and FLEVO, the acronym for Facility for Liquid Experimentation and Verification in Orbit, and also one of the newest regions in the Netherlands, Flevoland, east of Amsterdam.

  • Tons (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 14, 2005 @08:53AM (#11666485)
    10 metric tons (10K kilograms or about 11 olde english tons)

    Hang on a moment, if you're being literal, than an "olde english" ton is not the same as a US ton (2000 pounds). The imperial ton is is 2240 pounds, which would make the sentence:

    10 metric tons (10K kilograms or about 9.8 olde english tons)

    Thank you, and have a good day.

  • This is a dupe! (Score:3, Informative)

    by marat ( 180984 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @08:58AM (#11666507) Homepage
    02/12 version of this story got mysterious lost, but thanks to redundancy on slashdot it finally reached us now just two days later.
    • I misread the names of one of the satelites launched, and wondered if launching SlashSat was worth it: surely a dupe.
    • Here [reuters.com] is some rocket news that is current. Slashdot moderators in their infinite wisdon rejected it in favor of a Linux based cat feeder.

      George W's Missile defense system attempted another test flight today. The target warhead launched great, the interceptor once again sat on the pad and refused to launch, for the second time in a row. They've had 4 outright failures in 9 attempts and I'm not sure the 5 were entirely successful, its hard to tell with the people running the progream controlling all the
      • It didn't work? What a shock! That's why it's called a *test*.
        • Actually, that's why it is called a dud.
        • Only problem is they've failed the last 4 tests in a row. The first 5 tests kind of worked but its widely recognized that they were heavily scripted and not even close to realistic, now that they are attempting something realistic its failed everytime.

          The other obvious point being the last *test* failed too. Normally if you are test flying something and you have a failure you fix the problem. If you don't fix the problem what's the point of testing in the first place, other than you are hoping everythin

  • Oblig. Simpsons (Score:5, Funny)

    by SB5 ( 165464 ) <freebirdpat@@@hotmail...com> on Monday February 14, 2005 @11:59AM (#11668114)
    The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!

    So how many rods to the hogshead does it get?

  • Am I just out of the loop... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Spytap ( 143526 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @12:10PM (#11668245)
    ...for thinking that $20,000 per Kilogram is insanely expensive for a craft built to haul 10,000 Kilograms?
    • hauling things to the geostationary orbit is quite expensive in general, it's almost 1/10 of distance to the Moon.
    • 1.5 billion for one launch? Why don't they just build a f**king space elevator?
      • Well $20K/Kg multiplied by 10,000 Kg makes $200,000,000. That's 0.2 bil per launch. And that compares quite well with shuttle launch costs (~$400 mil).
      • " 1.5 billion for one launch? Why don't they just build a f**king space elevator?"

        Because we do not know how too yet.
        Yea lets just build a space elevator. While we are at it let's whip up a faster than light drive. And even better let's get that anti-grav launch system working to lift the stuff up for the space elevator.
        Currently there is no way to make the massive amounts of bucky tubes that a space elevator would take. We also do not yet know how to make a working cable from them.

    • Am I just out of the loop...
      Pretty much, yah. 20,000*10,000 is 200 million dollars. That sounds about the right ballpark for a heavy-lifting rocket into geo-stationary orbit.
    • I believe the Delta IV Heavy has similar capabilities and a similar price. Launch costs in general are still insanely expensive.

      I currently have my hopes for lower launch costs pinned on SpaceX's Falcon series, which (if all goes well) should start launching this year. Their Falcon V, although it's overall payload to GTO is only around 2000kg, should have a price equivalent to $10,000 per kg. Hopefully their planned even-larger rocket will have even better prices per kg.

  • Not the first launch (Score:3, Informative)

    by magsilva ( 59637 ) on Monday February 14, 2005 @06:52PM (#11672795) Homepage
    This isn't the _first_ launch of the Ariane 5 ECA. The first was on december 2002. Unfortunately, the vehicle was self-destroyed after three minutes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5) due to a software bug.
    • The reason the ECA was self-destructed in 2002 was due to the engine's cooling system not working correctly, thus the shape of the engine started to bend and twist which in turn made it impossible to porperly control the launcher.

      The engine is cooled by a number of tiny loops thru which liquid hydrogen (not 100% sure about that) is pumped to keep the metal from getting so hot that the above mentioned happens.

  • Im just waiting (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Striker770S ( 825292 )
    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.

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