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friendly_iconoclast

(15,333 posts)
17. Hatred of Musk has blinded you to the reality that first flights of new rockets often fail:
Fri Feb 9, 2018, 06:09 PM
Feb 2018
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_(spacecraft)#Launch_failure

Cluster was a constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft which were launched on the maiden flight of the Ariane 5 rocket, Flight 501, and subsequently lost when that rocket failed to achieve orbit. The launch, which took place on Tuesday, 4 June 1996, ended in failure due to an error in the software design caused by assertions having been turned off, which in turn caused inadequate protection from integer overflow. This resulted in the rocket veering off its flight path 37 seconds after launch, beginning to disintegrate under high aerodynamic forces, and finally self-destructing by its automated flight termination system. The failure has become known as one of the most infamous and expensive software bugs in history.[1] The failure resulted in a loss of more than US$370 million.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Bird_7

Hot Bird 7 was a French communications satellite which was lost in a launch failure in 2002. Intended for operation by Eutelsat, it was to have provided direct to home broadcasting services from geostationary orbit as part of Eutelsat's Hot Bird constellation at a longitude of 13 degrees east. Hot Bird 7 was intended to replace the Hot Bird 3 satellite which had been launched in 1997...

...Arianespace was contracted to launch Hot Bird 7 on the maiden flight of the Ariane 5 ECA carrier rocket, an upgraded version of the Ariane 5 intended to offer increased payload capacity to geosynchronous transfer orbit...

...Around three minutes after liftoff, performance issues with the first stage's Vulcain 2 engine — which was making its first flight — began to be noted. By the time of fairing separation, 183 seconds into the flight, the rocket was tumbling out of control. It began to lose altitude and speed, before being destroyed by range safety 456 seconds after launch.[5] The failure was attributed to an engine cooling problem which developed around 96 seconds into the mission, causing the engine to destroy itself


Here's a list of 105 more launch failures for your consideration:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Satellite_launch_failures

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