Hi Paul, I was watching the live Atlantic sat tv feed from Kourou. They had gone into a pre-recorded section about the payloads when the view switched back to the control room , where there was a look of total disbelief on the faces of the crew. The onscreen graphics said it all , the booster having left the nominal parameters track , and was heading straight back into the Atlantic. As you say ,.......... not good. John Subject: RE: Ariane fails ? > Press conference tomorrow in Kourou. > Launch was in early stages, solids and fairing had separated then about > 5 1/2 mins into the flight (speed 2 kms/s-1, altitude 140k), as the > first stage sustainer was firing MC observed the velocity and altitude > started to drop. > > Can only assume a catastrophic failure of the first stage based on info > given out. > > Looks like they didn't even get a chance try out the new cryo upper > stage :-( > > A bit of a body blow follwing on from ASTRA 1K :-( > > Pjh ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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