Hello All,

Shades of the LTV Scout's early days...tonight ESA's all-solid propellant (except for a small, restartable hypergolic propellant fourth stage/orbit "trim" stage, called AVUM) Vega launch vehicle failed again (see: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/11/...-status-center/ [videos are also here]). Spain’s SEOSAT-Ingenio Earth observation satellite and France’s Taranis scientific research satellite were lost on tonight’s Vega launch failure.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Lol. Not surprised.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

I find it VERY surprising. After all, Vega flew 14 times without a hitch before they suffered a structural failure on flight 15. ESA is already reporting this failure (admittedly, now 2 of the last 3 launches, 2 of 17 overall, for an 88% success record/12% fail rate) was due to human error - something in the fourth stage was mis-wired.

ESA will get their act together. Ariane was a bit of a mess early on, and is now highly reliable. And, given their "built-in" customer base of, well, ALL of Europe, they'll still have missions to fly!

The story on spaceflightnow.com talks about swapped cables in the engine control system and that it was human error, not a design error.

If it CAN be hooked up incorrectly leading to reversed controls like this, it IS a design error, or at least we would see it that way in the aircraft industry.....

That said, I hope they get it sorted out. I don't like to see any of these launchers fail.

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

Agree.

From the description in the SpaceFlightNow article (see: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/11/...to-human-error/ ), it sounds like the same type of cabling connection error (in the AVUM--Attitude and Vernier Upper Module--fourth stage of the Vega launch vehicle) that caused the Mercury-Scout 1 launch failure. (Surely by now, decades of experience should have resulted in clearly-marked--and perhaps color-coded [say, red for roll, blue for pitch, yellow for yaw, as well as those axes' names], or even differently shaped or sized--actuator signal cables and connectors, to prevent such maddeningly easy-to-avoid launch failures?) Also:

Had the Vega's ^first^ stage TVC (Thrust Vector Control) cabling been mis-connected, it would have been as exciting a launch as Mercury-Scout 1's (I don't like launch failures, but if a given one is doomed to happen, I'd rather--*unless* a crew is involved, of course--at least get a spectacular fireworks display out of it). On November 1, 1961, a Blue Scout II (round D-8) lifted off from Pad 18B at Cape Canaveral, carrying the Mercury-Scout 1 satellite, which was to remain attached to the Altair fourth stage in orbit (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Scout_1 ) . The battery-powered spacecraft's purpose was--like that of the later TETR Apollo tracking network training satellites--to give the worldwide Mercury network of tracking stations experience with tracking, receiving, transmitting to, and "handing off" an "electronic Mercury spacecraft simulator." But because a technician had installed the Blue Scout II's guidance system wiring backwards--transposing the pitch and roll actuators' signal cables--the vehicle began to go wild only a few seconds after liftoff, and it began to break up at T+28 seconds; the Range Safely Officer transmitted the destruct command at T-43 seconds.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR