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The Ariane 5 launch vehicle and all the work associated with the launch is ESA's contribution to the JWST project. In return, ESA gets at least 15% observation time:
ESA's participation in the JWST mission was formally approved by the ESA Science Programme Committee in 2003. The four major European contributions to the mission are formalised in the ...
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It turns out that there is only one currently operating rocket that has the width (5.4 meters), length, and the payload capacity (6200 kg to a C3 of ~ -0.75).
Atlas V 551 is very close, it has the fairing and is just a bit undercapacity, only being able to carry 6150 kg. Vulcan will be able to, I think Falcon Heavy modified with the larger fairing and ...
5
Then why making such a big deal with this first Max Q which is by far, less important compared to the second one?
Calling out Max Q is a tradition.
The overwhelming majority of vehicles that launch to space either never come down or we don't care in which state they come down. Therefore, for the overwhelming majority of vehicles and launches, Max Q on ...
5
ESA's space debris mitigation guidelines are aimed towards reducing the generation of space debris by following two approach
The most effective shortterm means of reducing the space debris growth rate is through the prevention of inorbit explosions (via passivation of space objects at the end of their operational life) or collisions (via collision ...
3
Surface gravity gives no information about escape velocity. Saturn for example has a surface gravity comparable to Earth, but an escape velocity three times higher. Similarly, if the Moon had a 10% smaller radius than its current one but was made entirely of iridium, it would have exactly the same surface gravity as Earth but half of Earth's escape velocity.
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Your idea that "no air would be able to enter the nozzle because the vehicle is moving faster than the speed at which air would be sucked in" is inaccurate. But the vehicle speed is irrelevant here.
The answer is pretty well-summarized in the top answer here as someone else linked, but to re-state it:
Vacuum-optimized engines are not operated in ...
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