WEEKLY WHINE

Explosion free zone

Look out, it's space time! We here at GoobNet are always ready to keep you up to date on the latest errors and fuckups in the space industry. This week, we're looking at CONTOUR [or what remains of it] and the Ariane 5 [or what remains of it]. Ready? Hang on, there's a hold in the count.

CONTOUR [NOT DEEP IMPACT]

The CONTOUR spacecraft lifted off in WED 03 JUL 2002, but when it was supposed to depart Earth orbit on THU 15 AUG 2002, its solid rocket motor didn't so much fire as explode. Communication was not regained after the burn, and telescope images showed three objects where there should be one. Did the spacecraft break up, or is this just a trial separation?

The spacecraft was to visit the comets 2P/Encke and 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. Hey, now it can go to both at the same time.

They tried to contact the spacecraft this week but received no response. Don't feel bad, APL. We get the same result when we try to contact Winona Ryder.

So they've now given up, and no further attempts to contact the spacecraft will be made. If it doesn't hear anything from Earth over a six month period, it is preprogrammed to emit a very loud signal over the AM frequency band, at 570 kHz and 1610 kHz, announcing, "Nah nah na-na nah! You can't catch me!"

ARIANE 5: AT LEAST BELGIUM GOT THEIR PART RIGHT

Britney Spears would be proud. Oops, they did it again: The Ariane 5 ECA, the upgraded version that was making its first flight, failed on WED 11 DEC 2002 when the core stage's thrust fell too low. You know, Bob Dole never has that problem any more, thanks to his "little blue friend".

At plus four minutes, the booster had stopped gaining altitude and velocity. But Arianespace officials didn't announce a problem until plus six minutes. What, you weren't sure there was something wrong? It's falling instead of rising, and still you need more data?

The self destruct mechanism was then activated, and the Hot Bird 7 and Stentor communications satellites were lost in the Atlantic Ocean. This fourth Ariane 5 failure in fourteen attempts was due to, according to officials, a "major engine problem". Wow. Such insight.

This major problem caused instability in the booster's attitude, and when the payload fairing separated, the Ariane 5 lost all control. Have you ever done that? Lost all control over your attitude? Thankfully, the Ariane 5 had a self destruct mechanism, unlike Roy Keane.

Anyway, the second last flight of the Ariane 4 occurred this week. It flew its 73rd consecutive successful flight. And it's being phased out in favour of the Ariane 5. Yep. Nothing like progress.

And that's all for this week's error watch. Coming up, we'll honour the second anniversary of STS-98, the flight that added the Destiny lab, officially known as the SNLM [Silly Name Lab Module] to the International Space Station.