“All systems go”: an Ariane 5 space rocket is readied for launce at Europe’s Spaceport
On 14th May two giant telescopes on top of an Ariane 5 rocket were launched into space from Kourou in French Guiana. From Cardiff I am leading two of the surveys that one of the telescopes is carrying out. This is my account of the days leading up to launch.
Launch -6 days. I am a chronic worrier, but it is disconcerting to see my normally level-headed colleagues join me in the fog of anxiety. The conversation at coffee every day this week has been about Herschel and Planck, the two telescopes that, if successfully rocketed into space, could help to answer questions about how the stars and galaxies were formed, and why the universe expanded so rapidly in the first split second after the big bang.
This week, though, we haven’t mentioned any of this. Instead the conversation has been about things that could go wrong. If anything does, it will be something daft. The first launch of Ariane 5 in 1996 failed because the software wasn’t updated from the less powerful Ariane 4. When the rocket measured the higher acceleration, it thought it was heading towards Earth and blew itself up. Possible daft things that we thought of this morning include Herschel and Planck getting stuck together and ending up just observing each other, or the cover not coming off Herschel’s mirror, leaving a billion-euro camera with its lens cap on hanging uselessly in space.
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