Ariane flight V88
Ariane flight V88 was the failed maiden flight of the Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket, vehicle no. 501, on 4 June 1996. It carried the Cluster spacecraft, a constellation of four European Space Agency research satellites.
| Mission type | Magnetospheric |
|---|---|
| Operator | ESA |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Launch mass | 1,200 kilograms (2,600 lb) |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 12:34:06, 4 June 1996 (UTC) |
| Rocket | Ariane 5G |
| Launch site | Kourou ELA-3 |
| End of mission | |
| Disposal | launch failure |
| Destroyed | 4 June 1996 |
ESA quadrilateral mission insignia for Cluster | |
The launch ended in failure due to multiple errors in the software design: dead code, intended only for Ariane 4, with inadequate protection against integer overflow led to an exception handled inappropriately, halting the whole otherwise unaffected inertial navigation system. This caused the rocket to veer off its flight path 37 seconds after launch, beginning to disintegrate under high aerodynamic forces, and finally self-destructing via its automated flight termination system. The failure has become known as one of the most infamous and expensive software bugs in history. The failure resulted in a loss of more than US$370 million.