Webb launch delayed two days because of ground equipment issue
After engineers at Arianespace’s French Guiana launch facility found an intermittent issue with ground equipment related to the Ariane 5 rocket launching the James Webb Space Telescope, it was decided to delay the launch two days to make sure the problem was resolved.
n a brief statement, NASA wrote on its website late Tuesday that the Webb team is “working a communications issue between the observatory and the launch vehicle system.”
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, said Tuesday that engineers found an “interface problem” in a system that communicates with Webb while it’s on top of the Ariane 5 rocket. “The way to think about it is it’s a ground support equipment thing,” Zurbuchen said Tuesday night in an interview with Spaceflight Now. “Basically, the data cables are dropping some frames.”
Technicians inside the Ariane 5 rocket’s final assembly building in Kourou have tried to diagnose the problem, but so far, haven’t been able to resolve it.
The December 24th target day date remains tentative, and could slip to December 25th, or even later, depending on how successful engineers are at fixing the issue.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
After engineers at Arianespace’s French Guiana launch facility found an intermittent issue with ground equipment related to the Ariane 5 rocket launching the James Webb Space Telescope, it was decided to delay the launch two days to make sure the problem was resolved.
n a brief statement, NASA wrote on its website late Tuesday that the Webb team is “working a communications issue between the observatory and the launch vehicle system.”
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, said Tuesday that engineers found an “interface problem” in a system that communicates with Webb while it’s on top of the Ariane 5 rocket. “The way to think about it is it’s a ground support equipment thing,” Zurbuchen said Tuesday night in an interview with Spaceflight Now. “Basically, the data cables are dropping some frames.”
Technicians inside the Ariane 5 rocket’s final assembly building in Kourou have tried to diagnose the problem, but so far, haven’t been able to resolve it.
The December 24th target day date remains tentative, and could slip to December 25th, or even later, depending on how successful engineers are at fixing the issue.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Yo, Mr. Z., — read that headline again.
wayne: Thank you. Now fixed.
I wonder what else could go wrong? This will be a Christmas gift that will be exciting to see unfold.
But let’s think positively! Everything has already gone wrong on the ground, so it has been fixed. There’s nothing left that can fail.
I’ve recently discovered the YT-channel of this guy, which I recommend warmly. It’s an ex-sailor who talks very knowingly it seems, about modern times submarines (they have some similarities with spacecrafts). I’m impressed that there’s so much information available about what I thought were the most secret things there are. This clip accounts for a dramatic accident of a Soviet submarine in 1989.
Things go wrong. Countermeasures fail half the way again and again. Crews are deliberately sacrificed multiple times. I especially like the episode where the hydrogen gas from the overloaded batteries explodes and actually helps to loosens the jammed escape pod with the captain and four others onboard. All but one knocked unconscious by the shock. He saves the rest to a raft in water so cold that one cannot use the hands, but must bite in ropes hanging from the raft. After a technical background, the story of the accident begins 17 minutes 10 seconds into the presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHYeE6YpyhM
I’m sorry I misremembered the accident story I linked to above, as I listened to it again. Only one of the five in the escape pod survived. That’s pretty bad statistics for an escape pod. As it left with another crew member knocking on the door being deliberately left behind at 1300 feet depth. I think this stuff is thrilling!
I had to make military conscription as a teenager (Isn’t it a great idea to teach teenagers how to play with weapons!) My first choice was to serve on a submarine. But I was too tall to be admitted. I suppose Swedish submarines are small. So I was put in the cavalry instead. Learned how to ride those crazy beasts called “horses”. I’ve heard that in the US you have things called “armoured cars” for your cavalry, we don’t have that. Anyway, it was very nice to act like a kind of tall poster boy for the army during parades. We even got tailored uniforms 19th century style. And silvery helmets with something flashy on top of them waving in the wind. Only later in life do I understand how truly lucky I was in the lottery that conscription is. Sergeant in the military police serving for parades in the capitol (rather than in the frozen marshes of the North like most had to). With an organization of girls taking care of the horses voluntarily in exchange for having a ride now and then. I mean, how can you not love the Army!?
Navy bad news, army good! ;-)