At least! After the failure of 2002 there has been a hard job, but now the European pride has been able to fly

I'm very happy, since I'm european

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMDAXXEM4E_index_0.html

Pretty as a picture and I think after the success of the Huygens probe on Titan and the continuing great work being done by the Mars Express Orbiter, Europe can at last hold her head high and feel she has arrived at the cutting edge of space exploration. The Ariane 5 ECA launch can only enhance that reputation. =D>

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Somehow I thought the launch was only the 18th #-o #-o

Ah well, I'm glad all went fine. Ariane 5 could do without another failure. Let's hope it can raise its safety record from now on.

=D> =D> =D> for all the people involved!

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It was supposed to be launched on the 11th but was delayed just a day to the 12th.

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successful Ariane 5-GS launch
http://www.arianespace.com/site/news...ase_index.html
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMXAY5Y3EE_index_0.html
14 October 2005
Just after midnight an Ariane 5GS successfully lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

That is a good rocket. They had a bad solid rocket propellant explosion in a Toulouse plant that was largely ignored by the press (as was a Wash. DC twister) by 9/11.

Ariane 5 was to have launched the Hermes as part of manned exploration. The naysayers thought the rocket was "too large" for any other payloads.

Horse Feathers.

And in reality, it launched all things except for Hermes .

Beautiful rocket, I'm glad this 5-GS launch worked out fine! Let's hope future Ariane 5 ECA launches are successful as well. When multiple satellites are launched at a time (I thought 7 was the record!), the launch costs per satellite get low for this Ariane5. And if you have only one satellite, you can launch a rather huge one .

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I've followed this one for a while now. Aside from it being a European rocket (and therefore, being partly funded by tax money from my country, is a little bit my rocket ) I also wrote a paper on the Flight 501 failure during my final undergratuate year.

Nice to see the new version flying.

Here is hoping for Ariane-M for the EM3 mission.

Arianespace's Ariane 5 ECA returned to the launch zone at Europe's Spaceport, allowing the final countdown to resume for a liftoff tonight with a heavyweight dual satellite payload.
Ariane 5 rolled out of the final assembly building at 10:30 a.m. yesterday and completed its 2.8-km. transfer to the ELA-3 launch zone in 60 minutes. The vehicle rode atop its massive launch table, which is now locked in place over large flame ducts for the vehicle's two solid rocket motors and its core stage Vulcain cryogenic main engine.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18310
Liftoff of the Ariane 5 ECA with its Spaceway 2 and Telkom 2 spacecraft is set for a 45-minute launch window that opens at 8:46 p.m. (23h46 GMT; 7:46 p.m. in Washington, D.C.; and 00:46 a.m. on November 17 in Paris, France).
The mission's Boeing-built Spaceway 2 satellite will enable U.S. operator DIRECTV to bring local high-definition programming to most of the American population, as well as expand its standard-definition local offerings.

any chance to have a direct brodcast?

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An Ariane-5 ECA launcher with two telecommunications satellites, whose blast-off was repeatedly postponed, lifted off from the Kourou base in French Guiana Wednesday, European group Arianespace said.
http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/05111....7z5s0emz.html
The Ariane-5 ECA rocket was launched at 8:46 pm (2346 GMT).

0005 GMT (7:05 p.m. EST Wed.)
Plus+19 minutes. Altitude is 238 km, velocity is 8.44 km/sec.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com
0009 GMT (7:09 p.m. EST Wed.)
Plus+23 minutes. Less than two minutes of propulsion remains in the upper stage. Altitude is 501 km, velocity is 9.0 km/sec.

0010 GMT (7:10 p.m. EST Wed.)
Plus+24 minutes, 54 seconds. The new cryogenic upper stage for Ariane 5 has just shut down to complete its burn for tonight's launch. The stage will prepare for deployment of the two satellite payloads a few minutes from now.
0011 GMT (7:11 p.m. EST Wed.)
Plus+25 minutes, 30 seconds. Altitude is 812 km, velocity is 9.22 km/sec.
0013 GMT (7:13 p.m. EST Wed.)

Plus+27 minutes, 58 seconds. SPACECRAFT SEPARATION! The Spaceway F2 communications satellite has been released from the Ariane 5 rocket's upper stage.

The spacecraft will use its Ka-Band payload to expand and enhance DIRECTV's direct-to-home television service and provide broadband services across the United States. Boeing built this satellite.

0016 GMT (7:16 p.m. EST Wed.)
Plus+30 minutes. In about 90 seconds, the "Sylda" payload adapter between Spaceway and the Telkom 2 satellite will be jettisoned.

0018 GMT (7:18 p.m. EST Wed.)

Plus+32 minutes, 30 seconds. Confirmation has now been received that the barrel-like Sylda structure was released. This exposes the Telkom 2 satellite still riding the upper stage.


Heavy-lift Ariane flies skyward
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4432446.stm
It is critical to the future of Arianespace, the company charged with launching Europe's rockets.
The Ariane 5-ECA first flew successfully earlier this year and will now take on a busier workload.
Because the vehicle can loft several larger satellites at once, it can keep costs down. This is important in what has become a highly competitive but relatively flat market for launchers.
"This represents the 20th success for Ariane 5 and the 10th in a row," said Jean-Yves Le Gall, the chief executive of Arianespace, just after confirmation came through of final separation.
"This clearly proves the very high reliability of our launcher. More than eight tonnes were injected into orbit tonight and this is a world record."
The ECA is a development of the generic Ariane 5 launcher that went into full commercial service in 1999.

I saw that:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/launchers-05zzzz.html Ariane
www.orbireport.com


Our Delta IV "heavy" [snicker] has yet to prove itself as being in the Ariane 5 / Titan IV range.

What do you expect from Decatur? Must be that UT labor.

Time to support HLLV folks. The payloads aren't getting smaller. They are getting larger.

I want you to take a look at that orbireport site again. How many R-7 and Proton and Ariane launches do you see in the immediate future?

Compare them to the delayed Falcon and Delta IV flights.

All that seems to work for the USA are those p---ant Delta II sounding rockets. It makes me want to pull my hair out.

Ariane 5 was originally intended as a man-rated rocket.

Is the current design so?

__________________
"I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive." - Carl Sagan, 1995

It was going to lift Hermes (which looked a lot like Kliper but was larger). It was found not possible to place hermes on top of Ariane 5 without making it unstable/braking the link due to the forces. This aspect of the Hermes story isn't included in many articles, so I don't know how much of it is true. But anyway the weight of Hermes drove the design for Ariane5 in terms of launch capabilities. The extreme weight and demands on Ariane5 combined with the costs (both from Hermes itself and creating an even more powerful Ariane5) made the hermes project to be cancelled. I'm looking for the interface story.

But as it is as important for the businesscase of Arianespace not to blow up satellite loaded rockets as it is for people not to blow up manned rockets, I don't think it changed a lot in the safety of the design of Ariane 5 itself. Again, people were never intended to sit within the confines of Ariane5 itself, but inside a spacecraft mounted on top of Ariane 5. But Hermes certainly demanded the design of Ariane5 in terms of launch capabilites and things like stability control to a large extent. Luckily for Arianespace, ariane5 is very useful without Hermes as a multiple (heavy) satellite launcher.

And probably much of the 2 billion invested in research in the Hermes project can be used in the Klipper project, certainly if ESA is going to participate.

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If I recall correctly a small test capsule based on the Apollo CM was launched in an early Ariane 5 test, and reentered the atmosphere safely.

That would suggest the rocket is good enough for a capsule.

__________________
"I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive." - Carl Sagan, 1995

That capsule was made solely for research into general atmospheric reëntry, and did not include "ariane5" as part of the scientific package but only as suitable launcher.

That is, if we're talking about the same mission and I've got my facts correct .

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Good points. Top mount spaceplanes impart pitch-loads and bending moments. R-7 and SRB are sturdy enough where you MIGHT get away with it.

But Hermes was a force driver which got Ariane 5 flying at least:

http://spacefellowship.com/Forum/vie...er=asc&start=0

Ariane 5 Campaign Gathers Pace For December Launch
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/ariane-05k.html
This upcoming flight will use an Ariane 5 Generic vehicle, and will carry the no. 2 Meteosat Second Generation (MSG-2) meteorological satellite for Europe, along with the INSAT 4A telecommunications spacecraft for the Indian Space Research Organisation.
The Ariane 5's cryogenic core stage has now been positioned over the massive mobile launch table, where it will be mated with the vehicle's two solid rocket motors.

it is a good rocket--with the Kliper's Soyuz-3 R-7 upgrade being a good replacement for the late Ariane 4. Hard to think of R-7 being a lightweight--but it is compared to Ariane 5.