Talk:Ariane 5/Archive 1

Early discussions
how much did the laucnhes cost?

These kind of computer bugs can be listed. I remember one from the Apollo 11 programme, when HP's landing computer went off or something like that, so skilful Neil Armstrong had to land by hand. --XJamRastafire 21:32 Sep 18, 2002 (UTC)


 * From memory, that was not a computer bug. Armstrong and/or Aldrin had forgotten to turn off the docking radar when they had un-docked the lander from the command/service module. When they came down to land, the computer system was overloaded with the extra data and gave an error code. They were afraid they would have to abort the landing, but quick thinking computer geeks on the ground told them it was ok to ignore the error and proceed. See Real-time. Imroy 08:51, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

With regard to Matthew Woodcraft's change "revert misleading addition: what was reused was not code, but a complete hardware unit.", I quote from the ESA Flight 501 Failure, Report of the Enquiry Board, section 2.2, page 6, which refers repeatedly to "software" and "ADA code":


 * The same requirement [in code written for Ariane 4] does not apply to Ariane 5, which has a different preparation sequence and it was maintained for commonality reasons, presumably based on the view that, unless proven necessary, it was not wise to make changes in software which worked well on Ariane 4.

IMO this counts as code reuse, even if it the method the code got on board the spacecraft was via a "hardware unit".

-- Hotlorp-

You can think of it as code reuse if you like, but it's not what people usually mean by the phrase. So if you use 'code reuse' in the article without further explanation, you will mislead people. That is, your addition made it sound as if someone copied bits of an old program into a new one, and the resulting program was incorrect. But this did not happen; the program in Ariane 5 was identical to the program in Ariane 4. Matthew Woodcraft

Ariane 5 succuses and failure tabel
Hello

I think we should put a bit more information on tabel with al the Araine 5 mission. More precise; when there is a failure we should ad little bit (not much, maybe 1 ore 2 sentences) information about what was the cause of the failure and when it occured.
 * Someone could translate it from the german article de:Ariane 5 table.

I think we should keep the "Launch history" section for special launches, we already have a table at the end which lists all launches.
 * I think that Launch history and the table are redundant, one of them should be deleted. Hektor 19:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * : I agree, I think the table is more than enough, not every launch as important, I think we should keep the Launch History section for special launches only Bastiaan Naber 23 Dec
 * : : I agree, but what defines a "special launch"? Record-breaking payloads like iPStar and failures? Nick L. 17:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You can create an additional article for the launch record table (like the german one) and link it from the main article. I think it might be interesting for some readers to be able to track all Ariane 5 launches. --Bricktop 05:06, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I've made the table much smaller now. Feedback? // Duccio 16:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Trimmed the "Launch History" a bit - Supa Z (talk) 19:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Better Picture?
I saw this picture on the ESA page and it appears to be allot better than the current image here. Should it be added to the page and perhaps replace the current top pic? --Hibernian 16:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

YouTube links
This article is one of thousands on Wikipedia that have a link to YouTube in it. Based on the External links policy, most of these should probably be removed. I'm putting this message here, on this talk page, to request the regular editors take a look at the link and make sure it doesn't violate policy. In short: 1. 99% of the time YouTube should not be used as a source. 2. We must not link to material that violates someones copyright. If you are not sure if the link on this article should be removed or you would like to help spread this message contact us on this page. Thanks, ---J.S (t|c) 06:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

SRB
Are the Ariane 5 SRBs reusable like the Space Shuttle SRBs or not? Big  top  22:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * They are not. Sometimes they were recovered on early flights, but they are not reused. Now most of them are left to sink in the ocean. Sincerely, Nick L. 03:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

computer bug in intro paragraph
I think the computer bug related crash deserves a mention in the intro paragraph. While it is probably not notable in the aeronautical field, it is considerably notable in the programming field, and I think it would be useful for people interested in that aspect to have a quick notice that bug-related information is on another page. Since my addition of a sentence to that effect at the end of the intro was reverted, I wanted to bring a discussion here for a consensus rather than start a revert-war. Another alternative I can see is a see-also along the lines of: this article is about the launch system, for information on the computer bug, see Ariane 5 Flight 501. (phrasing suggestions gladly welcome, I don't have much knowledge of accepted terms in the astro/aero area)-Spyforthemoon 14:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the introduction is long enough, the bug and the appropriate article are already mentioned in launch history, see Lead section. // Duccio 15:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Point taken. Are you also against the disambiguation link? I see this as being very similar to the Chornobyl example given at Guide to wriging better articles -Spyforthemoon 20:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well I don't know, the Chernobyl example seems to me completely different, in that case the town is famous because of the disaster and nothing else while the Ariane 5 is not famous because of the first flight failure but for holding 50% of the worldwide GTO launchers market and for being the rocket that will deliver important payloads to space such as the James Webb Space Telescope. It also launched missions such as SMART-1 so I think most people who type "Ariane 5" in the search box are actually looking for this article and not for the 501 flight one. So yes, to me a disambiguation link on top would seem redundant too. // Duccio 10:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

ECA?
The abbreviation ECA is used throughout this article with no explanation. Can someone explain it? SamRushing 04:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This stands for étage cryogénique A (cryogenic stage A). The stage designated here is the second stage (called ESC-A for étage supérieur cryogénique A, or second cryogenic stage) - the main one is cryogenic on all the Ariane-5 versions. Cochonfou 13:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I found this confusing in the main article, and I am tentatively adding a sentence to the 2nd intro paragraph listing the models flown so far, and listed without explanation in the infobox on the right. This may be a mistake for reasons that are not obvious to me, do just revert it if I am doing something stupid. My proposed sentence is to be inserted between the second and third sentences of the second paragraph in the lead section: "Ariane has been refined since the first launch in successive versions, G, G+, and GS, and most recently, ECA". Wwheaton (talk)
 * Yes, having that sentence in the lead section seems like an improvement. Why are the letters bold, though (both here, and in the "Variants" section)? Shouldn't they just be plain text? (sdsds - talk) 07:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Good question, I just found them that way and left them as they were. Wwheaton (talk) 08:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

European Law
I'm sure I saw an article recently that European commercial launches are required to use Ariane or Soyuz and no other launch service. Is that correct, or only true for ESA launches? Is there a reference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.14.211 (talk) 20:57, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A British satellite (HYLAS) recently signed a contract to launch on Falcon 9, Inmarsat has launch contracts with ILS and ULA and Eutelsat has several contracts with Sea Launch, so this "law" obviously does not apply to commercial launches. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 22:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to expand (somewhat belatedly) on this, ESA often fly payloads on small Russian rockets (most recently GOCE on a Rokot). CryoSat-2 will be launched on a Dnepr-1 later this year, with no European involvement in the launch (except through Russia), so I am guessing that the alleged law does not exist. -- G W … 20:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Upcoming flights
It isn't difficult to find sources like this press release which at least begin to support some of the assertions made in the Ariane 5 section. Does anyone have a citable source for the particular flight and vehicle serial numbers presented in the table? We might have to delete those columns if the assertions made there can't be verified. (sdsds - talk) 02:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Shape of booster nose cones
The shape of Ariane 5 booster nose cones is quite distinctive. Is it correct to describe them as "canted ogives"? Or are they "canted conics"? Or something else entirely? The Apogee Rockets "Peak of Flight" model-building newsletter calls them "oblique nose cones" and asserts Proton and H2 use them as well. Is there another source that would confirm these assertions? (sdsds - talk) 05:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure wether the terms you refer to have specific meanings within the rocket industry, but as basic geometric/architectural terms the 'canted ogive' is the most correct for the shape used on the main fuselage of the rocket - it resembles the shape in profile of a gothic arch, a canted ogive.

A canted conic could be the term for the booster sections, conic meaning 'cone', and canted meaning 'leaning', ie a leaning cone.

As for oblique, an oblique conic would be a very short, wide cone, which the Ariane does not have. 86.8.186.89 (talk) 11:46, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

a new ariane 5?
i found this article on spaceflight now.com that talks about the upper Vinci engine that is slated to replace the current HM7B upper stage engine on ariane 5 if this information is true then could this be talk about ariane 5 replacement rocket, Ariane 5 ECB?  --Nrpf22pr (talk) 02:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It is not a replacement, it is just a new variant, and it is already mentioned in the article: Ariane_5. -MBK004 02:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Europe, a country?
In the infobox it says the country of origin of Ariane 5 is Europe, a continent. Can this be changed to "place of origin" or is there one country that would be accurate? MiraiWarren (talk) 23:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Clarify Variants
Could the section explaining the differences between the variants be made clearer? I would also like to know if the Ariane 5 G used a Vulcain 1B engine (the Vulcain page is not helpful). The ESA website suggests that the next variant (with the Vinci engine) will be called Ariane 5 ME and could enter service in 2016; however, a new successor could be chosen instead. Should the article also mention the Liberty (rocket) proposal?86.41.46.28 (talk) 23:37, 14 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Ariane 5 G used a Vulcain 1, Ariane 5 GS used a Vulcain 1B (which frankly is such a small modification it might as well be the same engine). The current article already states this.


 * The Ariane 5 ME (Mid-life Evolution) is effectively the latest version of the Ariane 5 ECB, designed to replace the ECA and ES using a single architecture. The NGL or "Ariane 6", the supposed successor (there are still arguments over what exactly it will replace and when, which is to be decided at ESA's Council of Ministers next year), is running so late it's looking highly likely that the ME will be required anyway.


 * The Liberty isn't that integral to the subject, perhaps a brief mention in the EPC section is appropriate. ChiZeroOne (talk) 00:29, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The article does not contain "Vulcain 1" and only mentions "1B" once; in fact the subsequent sentence implies that the Vulcain 1B is the original engine. I don't want to change it because I can't find a suitable reference. Anyway, I also wonder about the Cryogenic Main Stage section-- if two types of first stage are mentioned, shouldn't the thrust data for both be provided? Also the empty mass seems heavier than is listed on ESA's website "This part of" should be deleted as it doesn't make sense.86.44.205.108 (talk) 21:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC) WatcherZero (talk) 10:41, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi WatcherZero. I think we're actually on the same page. To say "No specific country" in the infobox is a poor choice. Europe on the other side isn't that great either. I think it's best to display 20 ESA member states and use a hidden drop-down to list all member countries (see following example).

20 ESA member states

🇦🇹 Austria

🇧🇪 Belgium

🇨🇿 Czech Republic

🇩🇰 Denmark

🇫🇮 Finland

🇫🇷 France

🇩🇪 Germany

🇬🇷 Greece

🇮🇪 Ireland

🇮🇹 Italy

🇱🇺 Luxembourg

🇳🇱 Netherlands

🇳🇴 Norway

🇵🇱 Poland

🇵🇹 Portugal

🇷🇴 Romania

🇪🇸 Spain

🇸🇪 Sweden

🇨🇭 Switzerland

🇬🇧 United Kingdom
 * What do you think? To me, this is the best way to provide accurate information. I'll edit the article accordingly. Do you agree? Cheers, -- Rfassbind (talk) 17:23, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Not all ESA member states are involved in the launch programme. There's also the question of whether the line should be drawn at countries that provide money for the program or only those which actually provide the hardware. Leaving the "country" as Europe and crediting readers with sufficient intelligence to understand this is vague enough to cover all bases but if we really can't leave it like this then we should omit the field entirely. -- W.  D.   Graham  19:12, 25 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes that's true. Physically, the rocket comes from about 550 companies in 12 ESA countries. The flags of these 12 countries are displayed on the rocket's boosters surrounding the ESA logo - image of flags on rocket. You used the rather vague term involvement when you said not all ESA states are involved'. There are 12 countries physically involved in providing parts of the rocket, and there are 20 countries involved as members of ESA. As you said, the question is where you draw the line. As far as I know these are the 12 member states directly involved:

manufactured in 12 ESA states

🇦🇹 Austria

🇧🇪 Belgium

🇩🇰 Denmark

🇫🇷 France

🇩🇪 Germany

🇮🇪 Ireland

🇮🇹 Italy

🇳🇱 Netherlands

🇳🇴 Norway

🇪🇸 Spain

🇸🇪 Sweden

🇨🇭 Switzerland
 * Just because it's hard to draw a line between displaying only directly involved states or to include indirectly involved states as well (i.e. 12 or 20 ESA member states), doesn't mean we need to resort to the most generic term possible (Europe). Using "20 ESA member states" is already the generic version and it would be perfectly fine if only those 12 directly involved countries were displayed in the infobox item "Country of origin". To me, your reasoning is not sound at all. First you remark that the term "20 ESA countries" is too generic (as only 12 provide parts) and then you want to resort to an even more generic term (such as Europe), while quoting the word "country" and considering those, who point out that Europe is not even country in the first place, as not having sufficient intelligence. Cheers, -- Rfassbind (talk) 22:18, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it was too generic, I said it was misleading. -- W.  D.   Graham  08:44, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Infobox update
I am no expert on this subject, but it would seem that the infobox is not the same as the launch history section of this page. vs Oldag07 (talk) 14:06, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Last flight
 * G: 27 September 2003
 * G+: 18 December 2004
 * GS: 18 December 2009
 * 2015-05-27 21:16   VA-223   5ECA   577  DirecTV-15, Sky Mexico 1   Success   79


 * The 3 sub-variants of Ariane 5 listed above have indeed been retired - the current ones flying are the ECA and ES variants. Hopes this clears up the confusion. Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 14:10, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Makes sense. Thanks! Oldag07 (talk) 20:00, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

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More than one rocket?
I think it should be made more clearly that the Ariane are more than one rocket. For example, this sentence in the introduction: "On 28 June 2017, Ariane 5 performed its 80th consecutive successful mission since 2003.", makes it sound like they used the same rocket 80 times, instead of it being eighty different rockets of the same design. RISadler (talk) 13:46, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

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Launch prices
the Ariane 5 commercial launch price for launching a "midsize satellite in the lower position" is approximately US$60 million from Ariane_5 and the stated Cost per launch $165–220M in the info box seem slightly contradictory. --Rabenkind (talk) 10:41, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * $60m for the lower payload slot, $150m for a full launch. As development costs were recouped and the design/launch regime improved to lower costs they generally fall, its quite understandable that when brand new a launch would have cost around $220m, theres also the variance between sources due to exchange rate fluctuations. WatcherZero (talk) 21:59, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Alright, I see my mistake... thanks --Rabenkind (talk) 13:12, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Force produced by core stage suspiciously low?
Article claims force from each solid booster is around 15 thousand KNs. Force from the core stage is allegedly just over 1 thousand KNs. This seems wrong? In fact a back-of-envelope calculation reveals that if this value is correct then post booster separation, the vehicle will have a thrust to weight ratio much less than one and barely be able to hold altitude let alone accelerate into orbit. (2.30.110.95 (talk) 22:50, 2 May 2015 (UTC))


 * That's correct, the core stage T/W falls below 1 after booster sep. This isn't a problem since the boosters have left the core with significant vertical speed. Gravity losses are high but not unreasonable. Perhaps a section on ascent path for the various versions of A5 would be a worthwhile thing to add - IIRC the ideal launch of A5-G would result in orbiting the EPS+payload+the core itself into pretty easily, and for a while they considered just leaving the core there, later plans were to boost it up to a disposal orbit or equip with retros for controlled reentry. Eventually they left it almost in orbit, with a periapsis of a few tens of km to break up near Easter Island. A5-ECA doesn't have that problem but it does definitely lose altitude before achieving orbit. I have some papers on the subject, could be interesting.  A ( Ch ) 09:58, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That's correct.--Bolzanobozen (talk) 15:40, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Part of the reason it essentially coasts to orbit is it was originally designed to be man rated. WatcherZero (talk) 07:55, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Remove launch history
We should remove the launch history from this page and instead make the launch pages more prominent and look better. UnknownM1 (talk) 14:51, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I like the compact format of this particular table, If we're going to update the launch history pages, they should in my opinion come closer to this one. I agree that redundancy is unhealthy for updates. However, the launch pages are for the whole Ariane family, so this dedicated launch history of Ariane 5 still makes sense. — JFG talk 18:22, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Launch classification
I would like to compare and contrast the "Failure/Partial Failure/Success" categories with those used by NASA for its moon missions: "Failure/Partial Success/Success".
 * The present category of "partial failure" is being used where all mission goals are achieved. Wearing my engineer hat, that does not seem sensible to me:
 * The second Ariane 5 launch for example, is called a "partial failure", although every major mission goal was achieved including the payload (three satellites) successfully reaching orbit. There was one anomaly (excessive roll torque), fixed by subsequent repositioning turbine exhausts of the Vulcain engine, but that did not affect mission outcome.
 * Likewise, even more glaring is the outcome of the latest Ariane 5 launch, VA241. Telemetry was lost. This was an anomaly, but did not result in a failed launch. VA241 carried real payloads whose orbit was the major mission goal. Sure enough, telemetry or not, the payloads reached nominal orbit. The launch was a complete success, despite the anomaly. Under such circumstances, calling it even a "Partial Failure" violates not merely the 'mission goal not met' standard, but common sense.
 * For that reason it's worth insisting that NASA's approach is better (cf. their "moon missions" page). These launches should have been called, at minimum, a "partial success", for that is how both the US and Russian space agencies thought of them, and that is reflected in the corresponding Wikipedia article. --115.188.58.71 (talk) 03:08, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The "partial failure" assessment is used routinely by most sources documenting the history of rocket launches. NASA's "partial success" looks more like the historical exception, probably to give a positive spin to the stories. That being said, I would agree with you that the second flight of Ariane, having delivered all three payloads into their target orbits, should be labeled a success despite the minor issue uncovered. Regarding VA-241, most sources I've seen consider the launch a partial failure, because the satellite operators will have to burn extra fuel (and decrease their expected service life) to reach their final orbits. — JFG talk 18:20, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * After checking third-party sources, e.g. Gunter's Space Page I noticed that the second flight is considered a partial failure, because the satellites were delivered to a lower orbit than expected. This makes the outcome similar to VA-241. — JFG talk 18:26, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It does seem to be a minefield, ive seen some instances where a launch was labelled a partial success because it achieved orbit, even though the payload was never released and ive seen another where a launch was labelled a success because the Payload was deployed, even though though that payload then burnt up in the atmosphere. WatcherZero (talk) 21:58, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you remember which cases are those? — JFG talk 10:35, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Article length, and possible solution

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The article is exceeeding 100,000 bytes now, and is getting unwieldy. It seems that one possible remedy would be to hive off the Launch history sections into a "List of Ariane 5 launches" or some such, similar to how other launch vehicles with a large number of launches are handled. (e.g., List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches or List of Proton launches). Cheers. N2e (talk) 08:11, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree in principle, but we already have a List of Ariane launches which is structured by decade, and encompasses all the prior Ariane variants. On the other hand, the launch history here is a duplicate of the global list of launches since Ariane 4 was phased out long ago. Should we just create a List of Ariane 5 launches, and then purge the global list from Ariane 5 missions and rename it List of Ariane 1–4 launches? Will ask for input at WT:SPACEFLIGHT — JFG talk 18:43, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think I like the idea of splitting Ariane 1-4 and Ariane 5 launch lists. The Ariane 1-4 were progressive evolutions of a basically similar design, while the Ariane 5 was a fundamentally different vehicle. Then we could remove the list of launches from this article and replace it with a section on notable launches. Fcrary (talk) 19:37, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, Ariane 5 is a natural splitting point, whereas Ariane 1–4 were indeed the same family, Ariane 5 was a massively new engineering project: it only has the upper-stage engine HM7B in common with its predecessors. — JFG talk 00:36, 8 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I believe that creating the List of Ariane 5 launches would remedy the problem noted on this Talk page re improving the Ariane 5 article. I also concur with the idea that Arian 1-4 were derivative, so the 4-to-5 break seems a good point to divide the "List of Ariane... launches" lists.  N2e (talk) 23:43, 8 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Support: It is an ideal way for easier navigating through the article. —Yours sincerely, Soumyabrata (contributions • subpages) 13:51, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment: Is 100000 bytes really that long? I see that usual articles with awards are usually much bigger than that.
 * I have no horses on this one - either keep it in the article + full Ariane list or Ariane 1-4 + Ariane 5 lists will do (though for the later I would suggest putting the future Ariane 6 launches in the A5 list too). Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 01:34, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks like there's consensus to create List of Ariane 5 launches; feel free to go ahead. — JFG talk 06:41, 10 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.