Europe's space scientists have "lost faith in Ariane 5", says Roger Bonnet, chief of European Space Agency (ESA) science programmes, said at Farnborough yesterday.

They feel "betrayed" by the management mistakes - exposed by the official enquiry board - which resulted in the failure of the first Ariane 5 last June, he says.

The management of the programme was shown to be at fault, says Bonnet. "The review process was not correctly done and if they do not correct the process dictated by the board, we will not launch on Ariane 5 again.

"We are not flying on anything that has not been tested according to normal procedures."

He adds that unless the enquiry's recommendations are implemented, there is no guarantee that the next flight will succeed.

The failure, in which four Cluster science satellites worth $500 million were lost, resulted from flying the Ariane 5 with a French Ariane 4 dual-inertial reference system which was untested for use in a new launch environment. The system also had specification and design errors in its software.

"What is wrong is to launch a system before testing it fully", Bonnet says.

The error seems extraordinary. "Everything about the Ariane 5 management problem is extraordinary," says Bonnet.

John Credland, Cluster project manager, says: "Someone proposed Ariane 4 equipment. Someone asked for a systems test and it was refused."

Credland says that the Aerospatiale/French space agency (CNES)/ESA programme management structure prevented the "...review process being correctly done".

As the customer, ESA should have been allowed to conduct an independent review, Bonnet says.

 

Rules

The agency was constrained by rules imposed by delegates and transferred the day-to-day management to CNES. "What it should have done is to have had an independent review. The customer should have a view and a say," says Bonnet.

If the scientists get permission to develop four new Clusters, they will not be launched on next Ariane 5 but on Ariane 44L. The scientists would also expect "a free launch", says the angry Credland. Bonnet's "...anger does not fade".

ESA's Horizon 2000 fleet of science spacecraft is manifested for launches on Ariane 5. The first is the X-Ray Multi-Mirror telescope which is to be launched in 1999.

"It had better work," says Bonnet.

 

 

Source: Flight Daily News