Talk:Ariane 5

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[edit] Early discussions

how much did the laucnhes cost?

These kind of computer bugs can be listed. I remember one from the Apollo 11 programme, when HP's landing computer went off or something like that, so skilful Neil Armstrong had to land by hand. --XJamRastafire 21:32 Sep 18, 2002 (UTC)

From memory, that was not a computer bug. Armstrong and/or Aldrin had forgotten to turn off the docking radar when they had un-docked the lander from the command/service module. When they came down to land, the computer system was overloaded with the extra data and gave an error code. They were afraid they would have to abort the landing, but quick thinking computer geeks on the ground told them it was ok to ignore the error and proceed. See Real-time. Imroy 08:51, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

With regard to Matthew Woodcraft's change "revert misleading addition: what was reused was not code, but a complete hardware unit.", I quote from the ESA Flight 501 Failure, Report of the Enquiry Board, section 2.2, page 6, which refers repeatedly to "software" and "ADA code":

The same requirement [in code written for Ariane 4] does not apply to Ariane 5, which has a different preparation sequence and it was maintained for commonality reasons, presumably based on the view that, unless proven necessary, it was not wise to make changes in software which worked well on Ariane 4.

IMO this counts as code reuse, even if it the method the code got on board the spacecraft was via a "hardware unit".

-- Hotlorp-

You can think of it as code reuse if you like, but it's not what people usually mean by the phrase. So if you use 'code reuse' in the article without further explanation, you will mislead people. That is, your addition made it sound as if someone copied bits of an old program into a new one, and the resulting program was incorrect. But this did not happen; the program in Ariane 5 was identical to the program in Ariane 4. Matthew Woodcraft

[edit] Ariane 5 succuses and failure tabel

Hello

I think we should put a bit more information on tabel with al the Araine 5 mission. More precise; when there is a failure we should ad little bit (not much, maybe 1 ore 2 sentences) information about what was the cause of the failure and when it occured.

Someone could translate it from the german article de:Ariane 5 table.

I think we should keep the "Launch history" section for special launches, we already have a table at the end which lists all launches.

I think that Launch history and the table are redundant, one of them should be deleted. Hektor 19:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 : I agree, I think the table is more than enough, not every launch as important, I think we should keep the Launch History section for special launches only Bastiaan Naber 23 Dec
 : : I agree, but what defines a "special launch"? Record-breaking payloads like iPStar and failures? Nick L. 17:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
You can create an additional article for the launch record table (like the german one) and link it from the main article. I think it might be interesting for some readers to be able to track all Ariane 5 launches. --Bricktop 05:06, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I've made the table much smaller now. Feedback? // Duccio 16:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Trimmed the "Launch History" a bit - Supa Z (talk) 19:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Better Picture?

I saw this picture on the ESA page and it appears to be allot better than the current image here. Should it be added to the page and perhaps replace the current top pic? --Hibernian 16:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] YouTube links

This article is one of thousands on Wikipedia that have a link to YouTube in it. Based on the External links policy, most of these should probably be removed. I'm putting this message here, on this talk page, to request the regular editors take a look at the link and make sure it doesn't violate policy. In short: 1. 99% of the time YouTube should not be used as a source. 2. We must not link to material that violates someones copyright. If you are not sure if the link on this article should be removed or you would like to help spread this message contact us on this page. Thanks, ---J.S (t|c) 06:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SRB

Are the Ariane 5 SRBs reusable like the Space Shuttle SRBs or not? Bigtop 22:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

  • They are not. Sometimes they were recovered on early flights, but they are not reused. Now most of them are left to sink in the ocean. Sincerely, Nick L. 03:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] computer bug in intro paragraph

I think the computer bug related crash deserves a mention in the intro paragraph. While it is probably not notable in the aeronautical field, it is considerably notable in the programming field, and I think it would be useful for people interested in that aspect to have a quick notice that bug-related information is on another page. Since my addition of a sentence to that effect at the end of the intro was reverted, I wanted to bring a discussion here for a consensus rather than start a revert-war. Another alternative I can see is a see-also along the lines of: this article is about the launch system, for information on the computer bug, see Ariane 5 Flight 501. (phrasing suggestions gladly welcome, I don't have much knowledge of accepted terms in the astro/aero area)-Spyforthemoon 14:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the introduction is long enough, the bug and the appropriate article are already mentioned in launch history, see Wikipedia:Lead section. // Duccio 15:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Point taken. Are you also against the disambiguation link? I see this as being very similar to the Chornobyl example given at Guide to wriging better articles -Spyforthemoon 20:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Well I don't know, the Chernobyl example seems to me completely different, in that case the town is famous because of the disaster and nothing else while the Ariane 5 is not famous because of the first flight failure but for holding 50% of the worldwide GTO launchers market and for being the rocket that will deliver important payloads to space such as the James Webb Space Telescope. It also launched missions such as SMART-1 so I think most people who type "Ariane 5" in the search box are actually looking for this article and not for the 501 flight one. So yes, to me a disambiguation link on top would seem redundant too. // Duccio 10:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ECA?

The abbreviation ECA is used throughout this article with no explanation. Can someone explain it? SamRushing 04:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This stands for étage cryogénique A (cryogenic stage A). The stage designated here is the second stage (called ESC-A for étage supérieur cryogénique A, or second cryogenic stage) - the main one is cryogenic on all the Ariane-5 versions. Cochonfou 13:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I found this confusing in the main article, and I am tentatively adding a sentence to the 2nd intro paragraph listing the models flown so far, and listed without explanation in the infobox on the right. This may be a mistake for reasons that are not obvious to me, do just revert it if I am doing something stupid. My proposed sentence is to be inserted between the second and third sentences of the second paragraph in the lead section: "Ariane has been refined since the first launch in successive versions, G, G+, and GS, and most recently, ECA". Wwheaton (talk)

Yes, having that sentence in the lead section seems like an improvement. Why are the letters bold, though (both here, and in the "Variants" section)? Shouldn't they just be plain text? (sdsds - talk) 07:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Good question, I just found them that way and left them as they were. Wwheaton (talk) 08:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] European Law

I'm sure I saw an article recently that European commercial launches are required to use Ariane or Soyuz and no other launch service. Is that correct, or only true for ESA launches? Is there a reference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.14.211 (talk) 20:57, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

A British satellite (HYLAS) recently signed a contract to launch on Falcon 9, Inmarsat has launch contracts with ILS and ULA and Eutelsat has several contracts with Sea Launch, so this "law" obviously does not apply to commercial launches. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 22:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)