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I was a little surprised (but, as a European, chuffed!) that this is launching on Ariane 5. I would have thought that Falcon 9 would be cheaper, and Atlas V wou
by twic 5y ago
I was a little surprised (but, as a European, chuffed!) that this is launching on Ariane 5. I would have thought that Falcon 9 would be cheaper, and Atlas V would be preferred as a way of keeping it in-house. I believe they both have the capacity needed. Maybe Falcon 9 wasn't sufficiently proven when the deal was done, and Atlas V was more expensive?
- izacus 5y agoESA launching their satellite on their own launch platform and on their own launch pad isn't really all that surprising, is it?
- twic 5y agoIn my head, JWST was a NASA project (James Webb was an early director of NASA, during its formative years). I had completely blanked the fact that it's an international project, sorry!
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoAriane 5 has a really good track record, with no failed launches since the early 2000's and only a partial failure in 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_statistics
- Denvercoder9 5y agoThe two launches in 2020 saw excessive vibrations on the payload after fairing separation though, which would be pretty terrible for JWST.