All entries for Thursday 14 May 2009

May 14, 2009

Ariane is flying

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8050327.stm

click on the link to play a video of Ariane 5 lifting off the ground in French Guiana. With two telescopes on board, this day marks new era of great discoveries.
The ground control team were able to contact the telescopes 30 minutes after the take-off. at that point telescopes were ejected from the rocket, i believe it was over Indian Ocean. both telescopes will orbit L2 (Lagrangian point). let’s just hope they don’t hit anything on the way, otherwise £1.7bn worth of nothing thank you very much.
this was the most expensive scientific load launched from French Guiana.