Tim Furniss/FARNBOROUGH
EUROPEAN SPACE Agency (ESA) scientists have been "betrayed" by management mistakes which resulted in the failure of the first Ariane 5 launch in June, according to Roger Bonnet, the head of the agency's space-programmes office.
Bonnet says that the official enquiry board into the accident shows that programme management was faulty. "We have lost faith in the Ariane 5. If the processes dictated by the board are not corrected, we will not launch on Ariane 5 again," he says.
The launch failure resulted primarily from the Ariane 5 being flown with an Ariane 4 dual inertial-reference system, which had not been tested for use on the new booster. Four ESA Cluster science satellites worth more than $500 million were lost in the Ariane 5 accident.
John Creland, the Cluster project manager, says that management refused to sanction a system test when it was decided to use the Ariane 4 equipment.
Jean Marie Luton, ESA director-general, says that a third Ariane 5 demonstration flight will now be needed before the vehicle is declared operational and handed over to Arianespace for commercial use.
Only two flights have been funded by ESA, and a third was to have been the first official Arianespace mission. As Arianespace has ordered the booster and ESA member countries are balking at paying for another flight, the funding of the third ESA flight has become a controversial issue.
Source: Flight International
