Tim Furniss/LONDON
ARIANESPACE HAS been forced to order up to another six Ariane 4 launchers to compensate for further delays in the introduction of the Ariane 5 vehicle to commercial service.
The first flight of the European Space Agency's (ESA) new booster failed on 4 June, after an untested Ariane 4-class inertial-reference unit used on the Ariane 5 caused the vehicle to veer off-course and break apart, with the loss of four Cluster science satellites.
Charles Bigot, president of the European launcher organisation, says that the new Ariane 4 order will be needed to meet customer demands in 1999. He expects a considerable delay to the troubled $7 billion Ariane 5 programme.
Arianespace had planned to take delivery of the first commercial Ariane 5 (the third launcher overall) early in 1997. The first commercial launch has been delayed to 1998. It will be the fourth rocket off the production line.
This follows ESA's decision to test fly the second Ariane 5 on a geostationary-transfer orbit mission with dummy payloads in April 1997, and perform a third qualification flight - with a commercial payload and the space agency's Atmospheric Re-entry Demonstrator - the following September (Flight International, 2-8 October).
The failure on 4 June will cost ESA over $360 million. Member states have refused to pay for the additional flight, and funding is likely to come from the enhanced Ariane 5 programme, delaying the introduction of this more powerful launcher. Ariane 5 industrial contractors, led by Aerospatiale, may be persuaded to contribute funds.
Arianespace has 22 Ariane 4s remaining to fly and 14 Ariane 5s. The company now has a backlog of 42 satellites, worth $4.2 billion, following an order to launch the Skynet 4F. Arianespace plans to launch two more Ariane 4s this year and 11 in 1997. The company had been hoping to fly up to four Ariane 5s with eight Ariane 4s in 1998 and by 1999, to launch six Ariane 5s and only three Ariane 4s.
The company announced on 2 October that it had established a new company, Arianespace Finance, which will provide $400 million in loans to customers to foster the development of new projects for the Ariane launchers.
Source: Flight International
