Ariane-5 Rocket Explodes, Satellites Plunging into Sea

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, December 12, 2002

Ariane-5 Rocket Explodes, Satellites Plunging into Sea

An Ariane-5 rocket exploded after taking off from French Guiana on Wednesday, sending two satellites plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. The explosion was the fourth failure of an Ariane-5 rocket in its 14-mission history.

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Launch of Unmanned Ariane-5 Rocket Fails

The maiden flight of a new heavy weight European space rocket Ariane 5 failed Wednesday three minutes after takeoff, said an official of Ariancespace.

The rocket -- carrying a 10-ton payload of two satellites-- lift off 22:21 GMT at the European Space Agency in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America.

However, three minutes later, technical problems developed, according to Arianespace, the launcher's commercial arm, and the rocket fell into the Atlantic Ocean in pieces, along with its multimillion dollar payload, according to Arianespace.

"Approximately three minutes after liftoff an anomaly occurred, thus ending the flight 157 mission," Arianespace said in a brief statement.

The nature of the anomaly was not immediately known. There was speculation of a combustion problem.

Earlier in the day, the space station was the object of a bomb threat that proved unfounded, officials said.

Bomb threats made in anonymous phone calls to Guiana police forced the evacuation of the prefecture in Cayenne, the capital, and surrounding buildings. Bomb experts fanned out at the space center, which was not evacuated, the prefecture said.

"The threat proved unfounded" and pre-launch operations were not effected, said a statement from Marie-Francoise Bahloul, spokeswoman for the space center.

The two satellites were Stentor, an experimental telecommunications satellite commissioned by France's space Agency CNES and Hot Bird-7, Eutelsat SA's television broadcast satellite.

It was the second attempt for the launch of these two satellites by Ariane-5. The first failed from blast off on Nov. 28 because its main engine did not ignite.

The latest Ariane-5 was the most powerful in the 13-nation European agency's unmanned Ariane rockets. It was capable of carrying 10-ton payloads. Previous rockets could only carry 6 tons.

The launch of the new version had been regarded as a test for Arianespace, which wants to demonstrate that it can trim operating costs by placing two heavy satellites into geostationary orbit at a time.

The failure is believed to be a major setback to the European space program.

Flight Director Jean-Yves Le Gall apologized to Arianespace's clients who lost their satellites, then suggested the problems could be overcome.

"We've known them before. We have always overcome them and we will overcome this one, too," Le Gall said, adding that it was too early to spell it precisely why the mission failed.

The Ariane-5 faced a major setback last year. The rocket was grounded for seven months after a botched launch in July 2001, when the rocket placed two payloads into faulty orbits.

The program resumed in March when an Ariane-5 rocket successfully released an environment-monitoring satellite into orbit.

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