Analysis: Quest for Nirvana still eludes Proton M but Ariane 5 is there (Updated)

by | Aug 21, 2012 | Seradata News | 6 comments

The Space Team at Flightglobal/Ascend sometimes discover interesting trends as part of our analysis work. One concerning western launch vehicles that has been known for a long time is that after early failures (“teething troubles”) in a launch vehicle’s career, the failure rate tends to decline a flat “nirvana” state of near zero failures.  The recent announcement of Ariane 5’s current flight run of 50 successes is a case in point.

However some years ago the then Space Team (actually Dr Stuart Young) discovered that the same trend did not hold true for Russian and Ukranian launch vehicles.  While these had a low and steady failure rate, it never seemed to improve.   Comparison of the flight experience graphs of Western and Russian launch vehicles with similar launch numbers shows this difference.

For a time Khrunichev and its ILS marketing arm seemed to have improved their quality control and achieved “nirvana” with its Proton M rocket.  However this proclamation was premature, as a series of subsequent failures ruined this trend.

In fact the Proton M is a derivative from the Proton D-1-e whose history stretches back to the 1960s.  This has left many wondering why it has taken so long to make reliabilty improvements. Now even Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has noticed that his country rockets are simply not as reliable as their competitors.  After the most recent failure, in August, which has aleady led to the departure of the head of Khrunichev, Medvedev subsequently demanded a plan of action from Roscosmos on how this can be achieived.

The flat blue line shows that “Nirvana” has been achieved by Ariane 5.

Source:  Flightglobal Ascend Space Review

No “Nirvana “for Proton M as failures still plague its record.  Still, at least its failure rate is relatively steady and predictable making insurance quotes easy.  

Source:  Flightglobal Ascend Space Review

In case Arianespace or its fellow western launch vehicle operators get too cocky, there is an amusing note of caution.   Gallic hubris (the European Ariane programme is French led) caused the designers of the Ariane 5 to declare that the rocket would have a reliabilty of 98.5% before it even flew. Unfortunately, pride came before a fall, and the reliability of the Ariane 5 was marred by four early launch failures.  In order to now achieve its predicted 98.5% overall success rate, the Ariane 5 will have to fly two hundred times more perfectly if it is to achieve that.  One random failure will be all that is needed to mess this up.

It is not really a lack of reliabilty that is Arianespace’s main worry, especially given their cautious approach to quality control.  The threat to this organisation lies actually with the deadly combination of very competitive new launchers (e.g. the Falcon 9), the rise of national launch programmes, and the limited overall size fo the commercial satellite launch market. Arianespace cannot rely on ESA launches alone.

 

About Seradata

Seradata produce the renowned Seradata database. Trusted by over 100 of the world’s leading Space organisations, Seradata is a fully queryable database used for market analysis, failure/risk assessment, spectrum analysis and space situational awareness (SSA).

For more information go to https://www.seradata.com/product/

Related Articles

Soyuz MS-23 undocks from ISS and returns to Earth

With the hatch closed at 0441 GMT on 27 September 2023, Soyuz MS-23 undocked from the Prichal module of the Read more

China launches second Yaogan 33 mission in a month

In a near repeat of a mission which took place earlier this month on 6 September 2023, China has launched Read more

OSIRIS REx returns its Bennu asteroid sample capsule to Earth then heads for new asteroid on OSIRIS-APEx mission

Having been launched in September 2016, the main sample return pat of the OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid Bennu has Read more

Falcon 9 launches Starlink Group 6-18 from Cape Canaveral, then one puts Starlink Group 7-3 up from Vandenberg

SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA at 0338 GMT on 24 September Read more

Galactic Energy of China suffers first launch failure of its Ceres-1 rocket losing insured Jilin 1 Gaofen 04B-01

Having been launched at 0459 GMT on the morning of 21 September it later filtered out that the Ceres-1 Y11 Read more

Starlink Group 6-17 is launched by Falcon 9

SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA at 0338 GMT on 20 September Read more

Electron KS rocket has another failure losing Acadia 2 radar Earth observation satellite

Rocket Lab launched Electron KS from Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 0655 GMT on 19 September 2023. The Electron was Read more

China launches Long March 2D carrying Yaogan 39 trio

China successfully launched a Long March 2D/2 (CZ-2D/2) from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, Sichuan Province, China at 0312 GMT on Read more

SpaceX launches Falcon 9 with Starlink Group 6-16 aboard

SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA at 0338 GMT on 16 September Read more

Categories

Archives

Tags

nasaspacexecoreviewsissesaArianespacevideochina25virgin galacticfalcon 9ULAFalcon 9v1.2FT Block 5RoscosmosevaDGAspacewalkaviation weekaressoyuzIGTInternational Space StationBeidouawardsspaceBlue OriginSatellite broadcastingRocket LabStarlinkrussiamoonCargo Return VehicleboeingAirbus DSresearchmarsblogISROOneWeborionspaceshiptwojaxaimpacthyperboladelaymarsdemocratrocketEutelsatobamagoogle lunar prizelunarhypertextlaunchVegaSEStourismbarack obamaconstellationfiguresnorthspaceflightthales alenia spacenode 2fundedRaymond LygoIntelsatLockheed Martin2009Express MD-2Atlas Vromess2Elon Muskdassault aviationaviationLucy2008wk2sstlukradiotestmissilesuborbitaldocking portexplorationAriane 5 ECAVirgin OrbitinternetChina Manned Space EngineeringAriane 5SLSsts-1222010flightspace tourismNorthrop Grummancotsnewspapermissile defensegalileospaceportExpress AMU 1Long March 4CLong March 2D/2Electronbuildspace stationaltairinternational astronautical congresssoyuz 2-1ashuttleProton MEuropean Space AgencyLauncherOneCosmosIntelsat 23scaled compositeshanleybudgetrulesnew yorkAriane 6shenzhouspace shuttleatvVietnamcongressMojaveboldenLong March 2COrbital ATKnew shepardInmarsatGuiana Space Centeriaccneslunar landerksclawsSpace Systems/LoralUK Space AgencyLong March 4BILSUS Air ForceprotonTalulah RileyApollodarpaFalcon 9v1.2 Block 5Kuaizhou 1AVega CSkylonAstriumeupicturebaseusaastronautdragonlanderfiveeventTelesatSSLElectron KSNorth KoreaAprilSNCWednesdayinterviewSea Launchfalcon50thcustomerlinkLong Marchatlantissuccessor