December 11th 2002 was a black day for Arianespace. Their brand new Ariane 5 10 ton launcher made what looked like a perfect take off from Kourou in French Guiana. Less than 5 minutes later, flight V157 suffered a flight malfuncton which led to the launcher being blown up by the Range Safety Officer, and the Hotbird 7 and Stentor satellites were destroyed in the ensuing explosion. These are the press releases issued by various organisations over the next few days, and I'll add new pages in as info becomes available.
I was watching the coverage (11179V off Hotbird 6 via Fucino Earth Station Italy), and it was very soon obvious that something had gone badly wrong in the flight. There were some very grim faced workers in the control room, and the broadcast was terminated very rapidly after a brief announcement from the ArianeSpace mission controller. At this point, it wasnt obvious what had happened, apart from the launcher had been lost, but by lunch time on the 12th, more information was becoming available.
The picture below is the one from the ArianeSpace web site, and was put up on the flight status area of the web site very soon after the flight ended....
V157 - the ArianeSpace launch vehicle
Eutelsat press release 12th December 2002
ArianeSpace Press Release 12th December 2002
ArianeSpace Press Release 7th January 2003
Details from ArianeSpace press conference 7th January 2003
Hotbird 7A ordered 28th July 2003
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