Due to social movement, #VA236 launch will not occur this Thursday. New launch date ASAP. #Ariane5 & payloads are in safe, standby condition
Ariane 5 March 23, 2017Arianespace VA236: launch reschedulingAs the social movements does not allow the resumption of operations for the Ariane 5 launch scheduled for today, Thursday, March 23, Arianespace has decided to postpone the launch.A new launch date will be announced as soon as possible.The launch vehicle, with its SGDC and KOREASAT-7 satellite payloads, remain in a stand-by mode and are being maintained in fully safe conditions.Arianespace Flight VA236 – which is scheduled to launch SGDC for Telebras S.A., performed within the framework of a contract with SGDC prime contractor VISIONA Tecnologia Espacial S.A.; and KOREASAT-7 for ktsat.
DutchSpace @DutchSpace 3m3 minutes agoUpdate on #Kourou : Local people are telling me no roll-out before Monday,would mean earliest possible launch on the 28th #VA236
The labor unrest in French Guiana, Europe's spaceport, is not improving. A general strike has been called for, starting Monday.
@AuerSusan @pbdes its a continuation of the strike, also, negation team on the ground, but word is strikers refuse to negotiate with them
Quote from: pippin on 03/21/2017 09:21 pmAh. A strike. Now Kourou really feels like FranceBecause France has colonized French Guiana since 1503. They wanted to make that country like France since it's their territory.
Ah. A strike. Now Kourou really feels like France
A new tidbit I hadn't heard before is the satellites' teams are stuck in Kourou, since the airport is closed, and protesters' roadblocks were only lifted on Sunday to allow people to replenish their food stocks, and were up again at 4 am today, as scheduled.
Europe's spaceport & much of rest of Fr Guiana remains closed after breakdown of negs between local pop & govt. Two weeks & counting...
Europe's spaceport2/ Arianespace had forecast no launches in May, so bottleneck from 3-wk shutdown from strikes could be absorbed by June.
Quote from: eeergo on 03/27/2017 03:22 pmA new tidbit I hadn't heard before is the satellites' teams are stuck in Kourou, since the airport is closed, and protesters' roadblocks were only lifted on Sunday to allow people to replenish their food stocks, and were up again at 4 am today, as scheduled.As this will be the Lampoldshausen launcher, named for the 2016 presidency of the Community of Ariane Cities, the Mayor of Lampoldshausen and the director and vice director of DLR's Institute of Space Propulsion were in Kourou last week to watch the launch.They were evacuated from the Guiana Space Center by helicopter to Kourou Airport and by a Transall military airplane to Cayenne Airport to get one of the last flights out of French Guiana back to Europe.Photo by Hans Zeller, Arianespace:
Peter B de Selding has sent a whole series of tweets (starting here) on current political situation in French Guiana. Obviously this isn't a political forum, but the key point is that the protestors are clearly trying to use the shutting down of the space centre as leverage. I could see this dragging on for quite some time so might not be any more launches for quite a while.
"“The French government is working very hard to find a solution, and I am very, very confident that we will resume with the launches in the coming days,” CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall said during an April 4 presentation at the 33rd Space Symposium ..." http://spacenews.com/legall-confident-french-guiana-launches-will-resume-in-the-coming-days/ - Ed Kyle
Peter B. de Selding @pbdes 3m3 minutes agoEuro spaceport shutdown: 3 Fr ministers announce measures for Fr Guiana after ministerial council. Will strikers see them as sufficient?
Peter B. de Selding @pbdes 2m2 minutes agoEuro spaceport: ~30 sit-in demonstrators spent night at space ctr conf center awaiting Fr govt response to demands. They're still there.