Arianespace has warned that late deliveries of satellites may jeopardise its launch schedule for this year. Company president Jean Marie Luton says the situation may be as bad as it was in 1998.
Despite 11 launches last year, there were no flights between May and late August because of satellite delivery delays, Luton says. Eleven Ariane flights are to be made this year, three using the new Ariane 5.
Arianespace says that most of the world's leading satellite manufacturers are to blame for the irregular scheduling, which causes problems for commercial launch operators.
Luton believes the pressure put on satellite manufacturers to build craft in under a year when earlier a manufacturing schedule of between 18 months and two years was normal contributes to the difficulty.
This "rush" may have led to the in-orbit malfunctions experienced by some HS-601 satellites built by Hughes. The scheduling difficulty has been illustrated by Hughes' decision to remove Japan's HS-601-class JCSAT 6 communications satellite from its Atlas 2AS booster at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and to return it to the Astrotech plant in Titusville to fix a telemetry subsystem anomaly.
The JCSAT, due to have been launched on 13 January, had already been delayed last year after being damaged by an apparent power surge caused by a lightning strike on the Astrotech building.
When the JCSAT 6 is launched, it will be one of 11 Atlas launches scheduled for this year from Cape Canaveral. Other Cape launches planned in 1999 include up to 18 Delta models, three Titans, six Space Shuttles and one Athena. The Atlas launches include the maiden flight of the Atlas IIIA. A new attempt to fly a Delta III successfully after its maiden flight faied in August 1998 is included in the Delta schedule.
Source: Flight International