Software Bug Ariane 5. On June 4 1996 an Ariane 5 rocket launched by the ESA European Space Agency exploded just forty seconds after its launch from Kourou in the French Guiana. Since the 1990s particularly following the Ariane 5 Flight 501 disaster interest in automated aids to debugging rose such as static code analysis by abstract interpretation.
The Ariane 5s guidance software was reused from the Ariane 4 which was a slower rocket. On June 4 1996 an Ariane 5 rocket launched by the ESA European Space Agency exploded just forty seconds after its launch from Kourou in the French Guiana. On 4 June 1996 the maiden flight of the Ariane 5 launcher ended in a failure.
Unfortunately the Ariane 5s faster engines exploited a bug that was not found in previous models.
The rocket was on its first voyage after a decade of development costing 7 billion. The destroyed rocket and its cargo were valued at 500 million. Since the 1990s particularly following the Ariane 5 Flight 501 disaster interest in automated aids to debugging rose such as static code analysis by abstract interpretation. Later another B-2 bomber crashed and burned due to another software bug.
