Thursday, 24 December 2015

THROWBACKTHISDAY, DEC 24; The first European Ariane rocket is launched.

                              
The first launch was on 24 December 1979, and was successful. The second launch, in 1980, failed shortly after launch due to a combustion instability in one of the Viking first stage engines. The third launch succeeded in orbiting three satellites, and the fourth and last qualification launch was also a success.
During the next launch, the first commercial one, the rocket ceased functioning after 7 minutes of flight due to a turbo pump failure in the third stage. After a complete review of the launcher, the next 6 flights were all successful. The Giotto mission's spaceprobe was successfully launched on the tenth Ariane 1 (flight V14) on 2 July 1985.
The first SPOT satellite was put into orbit by the eleventh and last launch of Ariane 1 on 22 February 1986.
 
THROWBACKTHISDAY; makes it 36 years and TBB blog remembers.

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