Tim Furniss/LONDON
INSPECTION of a segment of the vehicle-equipment bay recovered from the debris of the Ariane 5 booster lost on 4 June has revealed a malfunction in the inertial platforms, the European Space Agency (ESA) says.
ESA and French space agency CNES had earlier reported that the most likely cause of the sudden attitude change had been an electrical or software malfunction wrongly informing a flight computer (separate to the inertial-reference system) that the vehicle's attitude was incorrect. This occurred 29.5s after lift-off. The vehicle began to break up 2s later.
The ring-laser-gyro inertial-reference system, on the Ariane 5, is supplied by Sextant Avionique. The report of the official accident investigation will be issued on 15 July.
The second ESA-funded development flight of the Ariane 5 could take place later this year, allowing Arianespace to fly an operational, commercial Ariane 5 mission in about April 1997.
The company has enough Ariane 4 vehicles on order to meet its manifest requirements until 1999, if there are serious delays to the Ariane 5 programme.
Arianespace restored European pride with the flawless launch from Kourou on 15 June of an Ariane 44P booster, carrying the Intelsat 709 communications satellite into geostationary-transfer orbit.
Source: Flight International
