David:
You failed to quote the most fascinating part of the article:
The caution is well advised. Statistics show that some two-thirds of the
rockets introduced in the past 20 years have had an unsuccessful first outing.
It is for this reason that the satellites carried on the "qualification" flight have been given a free ride.
OK, a 66% chance that our satellite would simply blow up, but a 33% chance that we could get a satellite a free ride into a polar orbit. Hmmm... Don't we have some hardware "sitting on the shelf" that we could offer up to the gods of maiden launches??? Like a linear transponder instead of a single-channel FM transponder?
John, Amsat-NA LM #2292 W0JT
On Jan 10 2012, g0mrf@aol.com wrote:
FYI
300 x 1450km
"Europe has named Thursday 9 February as the day it intends to launch its new Vega rocket for the very first time.
The 30m-tall vehicle has been developed to take payloads up to 1.5 tonnes into a polar orbit, and will fly from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
The project has been led by Italian industry and is years behind on its original schedule.........
David G0MRF
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