| Thanks to this topic I looked for it last night. It wasn't on CNN
at 7PM, so I did some hunting, finally finding it at 7:40 PM (1940)
on Spacenet 1 Transponder 19. That might be a good place to look
for the next launch; the video appeared to be a direct feed from
the launch site.
When I found it everyone looked very relaxed. They were at -6 minutes
and holding, because of a problem between the liquid hydrogen tank
in the third stage and its filling system. They had pretty much
decided that the problem was only with the sensor, not with the
tanks themselves, but they were working on a way to bypass the faulty
sensor.
Apparently the launch window had a hole in it, because they were
not able to launch between 2000 and 2019 Eastern Time. At 2019
I went back to S1/19 and waited with the launch team for the "green
light". Although there was voice over in English, actual operations
were conducted in French, and much of it was audible. I am not
very good at French, but I did catch "tojours rouge", which I think
means "always red".
With only six minutes to go in the launch window the last light
turned green and countdown started again. 20 seconds later it went
red, and the countdown recycled to minus six minutes and holding.
We all waited some more.
Interestingly, the S1/19 coverage did not suffer from ``Walter Cronkite
syndrome''. The commentator did not feel obligated to continually
chatter when there was nothing happening; he just showed a picture
of the rocket sitting on its pad, with a vapor plume streaming out
from it horizontally, and kept his mouth shut. The rocket picture
was intercut with pictures of people wearing headphones with mikes
sitting in the launch facility.
Even our tacturn English announcer was getting anxious as the launch
window drew toward a close without countdown starting. Finally, with
only one minute to go in the window, countdown started again. This
time it was not interrupted--the launch director counted the last
10 seconds over the PA system: "neuf, huite, sept, six, cinque, quatre,
trois, deux, un" and then a one-syllable word which I did not
recognize, presumably meaning "fire" or "ignition". Shortly after
that the first stage lifted off, with a fire in its tail. Because
of the night launch you couldn't see much, as indicated in .3, but
it was possible to see the solid rockets separate. I don't know
if CNN showed that; NBC did not show it this morning, though they
did announct the successful launch.
As an aside, the NBC coverage this morning contained a serious fault.
They did not mention that the launch was unmanned, and they showed some
Shuttle footage right after the liftoff, during the report of the
satellite deployment. I think this will give a lot of people the
impression that Ariane 19 was a manned mission.
After the liftoff there was a lot of tension in the control room
until the third stage fired--that caused cheers and applause. I
think they may have been less than completely confident about the
fix. By the way, the computer graphics that they used to illustrate
progress were very good, compared to NASA's. They showed a couple
of icons following lines, with milestones like S1/S2 sep. marked
on them. I don't read French well enough to know whether the height
of the graphs meant altitude or velocity, but it was clear that
all was going well: all parameters were "nominal", in both French
and English, every few seconds.
After the third stage shut down they set up orientation and spin
for Aussat and released it successfully, causing another round of
cheering and applause. At this point an Australian voice came on
the circuit explaining that Aussat-3 would be boosted to a
geosynchronous orbit at 164 degrees East as soon as it came in range
of the Australian tracking stations.
Interestingly, ESA only seems to have four tracking stations, the
last one in Africa.
Shortly after the Aussat separation the other satellite was similarly
deployed. Very little was said about it--not even that it was to be
placed in geosynchronous orbit. I wonder if it is somebody's military
satellite? After its deployment there was considerably letdown, with
people taking off their headsets, even though our commentator said that
there was one more maneuver that Ariane would perform, to avoid
collision with its former payloads.
There were some interviews afterwards, in both French and English.
Looking carefully at the picture and sound it seemed that the video
was delayed about 1/4 second longer than the audio. I speculate
that the audio was carried using terrestial lines to the ground
station, but that video was sent there through some satellite.
The ground station then sent everything over S1/19. If that is
the case I was not watching a direct feed from the launch site.
During the interviews there was a brief reference to the next launch,
in which they said that Washington should be quite interested.
Does anybody know more details? Also, an Australian fellow mentioned
that he hadn't been worried about the launch because they had already
extended the launch window. Maybe that means that there was more
than one minute to go when they restarted countdown.
Thanks very much for posting this notice of the launch. I haven't
had so much fun since Apollo.
John Sauter
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| I really am going to have get a system up soon...
re .3
Solid burnout and seperation is at about T+32 sec (30 seconds after
the solids light). Did they show the flight beyond that? CNN played
edited highlights, part of which may have been solid sep I guess.
The second satellite, Eutelsat-1 F4, is a Ku band DBS bird. It will
be located at 10 degrees east. Next launch is listed as October
on my schedule, an Ariane-2 carrying TV-Sat 1.
The first Ariane-4 (a 44LP variant, I think) is scheduled for Jan
88.
re 'The Walter Cronkite Effect'... fortunately that is usually
restricted to the US networks, although some of the news clones
they used in Australia came close. For shuttle launches we used
to watch the live video but listen to Voice of America via SW.
gary
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Eutelsat-1 F4 isn't really a DB satellite, just a normal communications
satellite (though the classical definition of a DB satellite might have
to be changed, for all practical purposes, the current satellites can
be considered DBS). Eutelsat-1 F4 should have a footprint of about 45
dbW in Central Europe, so you can easily receive it with a 1.5m or even
1.2m dish.
Next Ariane launch is scheduled for November 17, and will carry
TV-Sat-1, Europe's first true direct broadcasting satellite. It is
calculated to provide about 65 dBW in Central Europe.
As far as I understand, ECS-4 is the ESA designation for the bird; when
it has passed acceptance tests etc. it's taken over by, among others,
the German PTT and they call it Eutelsat-1 F4.
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| The following is from the Friday, September 9, 1988 edition
of THE BOSTON GLOBE:
"Europeans launch two US satellites"
Kourou, French Guiana - An ARIANE rocket blasted into space
yesterday [September 8], lifting into orbit two American satellites
destined to upgrade telephone and television service in the United
States. Liftoff took place without a hitch from the European Space
Agency's [ESA] launch site on the edge of the Guianian jungle, on
the northeastern coast of South America. The satellites belong to
GTE-Spacenet and Satellite Transponder Leasing Corporation, a division
of IBM. (AP)
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