KIWIS CAN FLY! Also, this little bugger is electric (ok propellant pumps are...) so should this thread be in EVs? (-no coz it's hybrid ; )
For many it might be obvious and for some who didn't take the time to click on the video, may be not. The 2nd video of the crash of (a component of) a rocket is Chinese made and has no correlation to the Kiwi rocket in the first post.
That was louder than I expected. Awesome! Great to see them do well. More options for smaller customers makes a lot of sense.
The Ariane 5 has an excellent launch history. It is the #1 competitor to SpaceX. It has had 97 launches since June 1996. It has had 2 failures and 3 partial failures in its history.
Ten seconds from the countdown timer hitting zero to actual liftoff... just a different way of doing things, I guess.
I noticed that too. And the frequent switch to animation away from live shots just a minute after launch even before the side boosters separated was kind of odd. Fairings separation was shown as animation although few seconds later they showed live pictures of fairing floating away and falling down. I am hopeful and waiting for the landing of the first stage. That should be a treat to watch.
Vulcain needs 7 seconds run up after ignition to be green for launch, then the solids ignite. Its basically Ariane's version of a static fire. Cloud cover means you can only get a few seconds of the actual live launch. The fairing footage, obviously, is on-board the vehicle and way above the clouds.
Ariane has a new rocket coming out, the Ariane 6, that is in response to SpaceX's low prices. There was a brief time a while ago that ArianeSpace considered some sort of partial recovery with the engine (similar to Vulcan) and then they've played with reusability with Callisto. I wouldn't expect to see anything done with reusability except for SpaceX before 2025 except for, maybe, China. France, Germany studying reusability with a subscale flyback booster - SpaceNews.com
The Parker Solar Probe will be launched by a ULA Delta IV tonight. It was scrubbed last night. The Delta IV is a pretty cool rocket for a standard throwaway. Liftoff of the Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida is scheduled for 3:33 a.m. EDT (0733 UTC). A discussion on Facebook ran the math and FH could pull off the PSP if it was even eligible to do so.
After successfully launching the probe I heard the rockets/boosters all crashed into the ocean. I was looking for 'ULA rockets crashed', 'Yet another failure for ULA' headlines in CNN or WSJ, but didn't see any. Hmm I wonder why?
Dual stacked Ariane launches this afternoon. Window is 2:53-3:38 pacific. Presumably the webcast will be here: Ariane Flight VA243 - Arianespace