4 ms·
Why are Europeans controlling this?
by sydthrowaway 5y ago
Why are Europeans controlling this?
- sofetch 5y agoIt's their launch facility.
- Nicksil 5y agoWhy not?
- sydthrowaway 5y agoI thought it's a NASA project.
- Nicksil 5y agoInternational https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/webb/about/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/webb/about/index.html
- khuey 5y agoOne of the European contributions to the mission is the launch vehicle.
- m4rtink 5y agoIIRC also at one point the project was in a big trouble due to cost overruns. Europe joining the effort by providing the launcher, one of the instruments and part of the project team saved the whole project from cancelation.
- mavhc 5y agoESA have the best rocket that can fit it in
- 323 5y agoNASA, like most US companies, outsourced flying things to space to other entities, since flying things to space it's not it's core competency anymore.
- midasuni 5y agoAriane 5 was the best rocket for the job
- dustintrex 5y agoNaive Q: what makes Ariane 5 better than Falcon 9/Heavy here?
- jorge-d 5y agoIts track record is almost perfect
- Symbiote 5y agoIt existed and was already a reliable launch vehicle when the project was being designed and constructed.
- robin_reala 5y agoFalcon didn’t exist when the choice was made, which makes Ariane automatically better.
- gameswithgo 5y ago80 something flawless launches in a row
- WJW 5y agoFalcon 9 does not have enough capacity; the JWST is too heavy for it to launch all the way to L2. So F9 is out. Falcon Heavy does have enough capacity, but: 1. It was not really available for bookings when the JWST mission was planned and 2. even if NASA could choose again today, Ariane 5 has a track record of 106 successes out of 111 launches (107 out of 112 now I guess) and Falcon Heavy is still relatively untested with only 3 launches (all of which were successful, but still only 3). For something super critical you might want to go with old but dependable technology over the newest hotness.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Tuna-Fish 5y agoWhen they made the choice of rocket, Ariane 5 was the most reliable rocket in the world that was capable of lifting it. Given the sticker price, they decided that cutting risk was more important than purchasing domestic.
- 1_player 5y ago"The [Ariane 5] launch vehicle had a streak of 82 consecutive successful launches between 9 April 2003 and 12 December 2017." Then one partial failure on 25 January 2018, and another consecutive stretch of successful launches, including today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5
- perihelions 5y agoIt was far from the "most reliable" when this decision was made! >"Faced with a grim record of 4 failures from just 14 Ariane 5 launches, some observers were starting to ask if Europe's 25-year-old rocket programme is more trouble than it's worth." >"Although developed primarily for the commercial market, a new class of heavy-lifter rockets will also be used to launch the next generation of deep-space research probes, such as the planned James Webb space telescope, Southwood says." https://www.nature.com/articles/420723a https://www.nature.com/articles/420723a ("ESA weighs up future after Ariane explosion") [2002]
- 1_player 5y ago4 failures in the first 6 years of operation, and only 1 in the following 20 years is a good track record. How were the other launch vehicles faring in 2002?
- inglor_cz 5y agoYou are being downvoted, possibly for sounding vaguely nationalistic, but this is actually a good opportunity to ponder the timescale of the entire program. The idea of JWST was conceived around 1990, when Hubble was freshly flown into space and people started thinking about its successor. Development in earnest started in 1996 and JWST should have been ready to launch in 2007. This date was pushed back many, many times. (Much like with construction of nuclear power plants - megaengineering projects tend to suffer from this kind of slip-ups, cost overruns and delays.) This means that the definite launch arrangements were done before SpaceX was the giant it is today. Space Shuttle was discontinued, so the most reliable rocket of that time simply won. This is no ordinary payload and you really do not want to lose it to launcher failure.
- thebigman433 5y agoEven if they were going to pick a launcher today, the Ariane 5 would still probably be the choice. F9 cant get JWST to where it needs to go, and Falcon Heavy is still new and relatively unproven with only 3 launches. There really arent any other good choices for it