3 ms·
what's the biggest risk? rocket failure during takeoff or telescope malfunction?
by fnord77 5y ago
what's the biggest risk? rocket failure during takeoff or telescope malfunction?
- xeromal 5y agoI believe the unfurling of the solar panels is one of the tricky parts.
- FranOntanaya 5y agoMost rockets these days are pretty reliable. Ariane 5 only had one partial failure in 20 years I believe.
- RaiausderDose 5y agoAriane 5 rockets have accumulated 109 launches since 1996, 104 of which were successful, yielding a 95.4% success rate. Between April 2003 and December 2017, Ariane 5 flew 82 consecutive missions without failure, but the rocket suffered a partial failure in January 2018 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5
- topspin 5y agoThere are several big risks. It's impossible to rank them in a credible way. Obviously there are all the usual launch risks. The cryogenics system has had a lot of development problems. The deployment is staggeringly complex and involves components that are not known for their robustness. Finally there is no repair option; one critical things goes wrong or is found to be misdesigned and that's it.