Fokker
was at that time the prime contractor for the Ariane interstages. The main parachutes were
made by Irvin in UK, while Autoflug, Germany, provided the drogue parachutes
and control box.
Fokker
delivered the special interstage in mid 1982 and the parachute system added an
additional 850kg to the launch vehicle.The test was now scheduled to be part of
Ariane flight L07.
Unfortunately,
in September 1982, the failure of Ariane 5th flight (L05) and loss of its first
commercial payload put the program on hold and impacted the launch manifest.
Flight L07 was now due to carry an Intelsat V, whose weight precluded carriage
of parachutes.
The
parachute live test was first postponed to the 11th mission, due mid 1984. This
was changed again and the flight of the next Ariane 1 (V-14) was
picked instead.
At last
On July
2nd 1985, a recovery barge and a tugboat came all the way from Hamburg, Germany
to the recovery zone in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. At the Kourou space center in French Guiana 350kms away, the Ariane 1 rocket rose up into the sky and 149 seconds after launch, the staging operation went as planned and the 1st stage started its free fall toward the recovery ships.
However, the parachutes system did not
work out and the 1st stage crashed loudly into the sea. The recovery live test was a failure.
That
evening, while cheering to the successful launch of the rocket’s payload, the probe
Giotto, ESA announced that a new recovery test will be planned asap.
However,
a series of dramatic failures would soon stormed the western space industry
during the following months. Two Ariane flights would go wrong in September
1985 (V-15) and in May 1986 (V-18). The Space Shuttle would be grounded after
the Challenger disaster in Early 1986 and in April 1986, a Titan 34D would
destroyed its launch pad.
Gaining
back launcher reliability was now more important than reducing costs for the
commercial launch market. So, the second recovery test was scrubbed as the
Ariane 4 development programme was winding-up for a maiden flight in 1988.
References :
- ESA Bulletin nr 39 pp19 - Feb 1982 -
- FLIGHT International - 17 April 1982 - Fokker makes Ariane a parachute
Images
are my personal thought of what could have been the recovery scene. Based
on New Scientist - 6 May 1982 - Down to earth rocket
