Just goes to show that the US didn't corner the market on launch failures. Folks, when someone tells you that going into space is easy, don't believe them. After 44 years of space launches, if it were really easy we wouldn't have so many failures.

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_space.jsp?view=story&id=news/sari0716.xml

Inquiry Board Launches Investigation Of Ariane 5 Failure

By AviationNow.com Staff

16-Jul-2001 1:43 PM U.S. EDT

European launch consortium Arianespace on Monday named a seven-member independent investigation board to study the cause of last week's failure of an Ariane 5 upper stage in which two satellites were left stranded in a low orbit.

The board -- which is to report its initial conclusions to Arianespace on Aug. 1 -- is expected to focus on problems in the heavy-lift rocket's storable propellant second stage that apparently failed during Flight 142 on July 12.

The Ariane 5's core stage and its solid-rocket boosters worked as advertised, providing normal thrust from liftoff through about the first nine minutes of the half-hour-long flight, Arianespace has said.

A problem, however, began when the German-built EPS 6,000-pound-thrust upper stage ignited and failed to generate enough thrust.

That left the two satellites - the European Space Agency's (ESA) Artemis (depicted in photo) and a Japanese BSAT-2b built by Orbital Sciences Corp of Dulles, Va. - some 11,500 miles lower than their planned 22,360-mile apogee.

The combined cost of both satellites is about $1 billion.

ESA this week is looking into the possibility of salvaging Artemis.

The spacecraft, put into a safe mode by ground controllers about two hours after launch, possibly could be raised to its proper orbit by using its stored supply of chemical fuel, the space agency said in a statement.

But engineers won't know for certain until the end of this week after detailed analysis.

Artemis was designed to maintain its position on orbit through the use of ion propulsion. The satellite's solar panels now are partially deployed as planned for the nominal mission and are powering Artemis correctly, according to ESA.

The launch failure was a major setback for Arianespace, which is competing with Russian, U.S., Chinese and other boosters for a share of the global commercial launch market.

The flight was the third Ariane 5 mission that has had serious problems, a point that could affect its market prospects and future insurance rates.

Investigators now will analyze both the cause of the failure and propose appropriate corrective measures.

Members of the inquiry board are Roger Vignelles, who will serve as chairman, Massimo Trella, Andre Van Gaver of ESA, Wolfgang Koschel of the German aerospace center DLR, Pascal Pempie of France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES); Hugues Laporte of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) and Alain Souchier of Paris-based Snecma.

Arianespace's next launch, meanwhile, remains on track for liftoff on the night of Aug. 23 to 24 from Kourou, French Guiana. Flight 143 will feature an Ariane 44L launching with the Intelsat 902 telecommunications satellite.