2024-07-10 09:53:16
3-2-1 lift-off! Four years late, the European launch vehicle “Ariane 6” has now launched for the first time. The flight is expected to last three hours.
Europe’s new launch vehicle “Ariane 6” has successfully flown into space. The rocket took off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on its maiden flight at 9 p.m. our time (4 p.m. local time), as the livestream of the European Space Agency ESA showed.
The launch had previously been postponed by an hour. The reason was a “minor problem” on the ground, which had been resolved, according to ESA on the short message service X.
Seven seconds before launch, the main stage engine of the “Ariane 6” was ignited. At launch, ESA then ignited the boosters (first stage) of the rocket so that the “Ariane 6” could take off. The boosters were ejected as planned around two minutes after launch and fell back to Earth.
The main stage engine was switched off just seven minutes after launch, and shortly afterwards the upper stage was separated from the engine. During its flight, the so-called Vinci engines were used to guide the upper stage to pre-planned positions where the payload was released.
But it didn’t go entirely according to plan. An auxiliary engine in the upper stage did initially ignite, but then stopped, as Martin Sion, head of the rocket manufacturer ArianeGroup, explained. It is not yet known why.
Sion said of the incident: “It’s unfortunate, but that’s also the reason why we’re doing a technical demonstration, because there are things we can’t test on the ground.” The test phase at the end of the first flight was intended to collect as much information as possible. They wanted to see how the upper stage of the rocket behaves in so-called microgravity, a state in which the gravitational force is either not present or extremely weak.
On its first flight, the new launch vehicle had 18 technical devices on board. These included microsatellites from universities and scientific experiments – including some from Germany – including the “Nyx Bikini” space capsule from The Exploration Company and the “OOV-Cube” satellites from RapidCubes and “Curium One” from Planetary Transportation Systems.
The “Ariane 6” is scheduled to complete its first commercial flight at the end of this year. It is not clear whether the deadline can be met, says Jens Franzeck, head of production at the Ariane Group, which is responsible for building the European launch vehicle. “We are aiming for this, and all preparations are being made for it,” he said.
In future, the “Ariane 6” will be used to launch satellites into space for commercial and public clients. The predecessor model, “Ariane 5”, was launched for the last time in June last year after 27 years of use. Since then, the Europeans have not been able to launch satellites into orbit independently.