Ariane 5 rocket starts its final mission – 7/5/2023 – Science

Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket launched on Wednesday from French Guiana for the last time, carrying two military communications satellites and leaving European countries with a vacuum on autonomous access to space for the first time in more than four decades.

The 53-meter-tall, three-stage launcher left the launch pad at French spaceport Kourou on its 117th and final mission at 7 pm local time, deploying two satellites on schedule about 30 minutes later, according to a broadcast. live online.

“Ariane 5 is over and Ariane 5 has perfectly finished its job,” Arianespace Chief Executive Stéphane Israel said in the webcast.

The mission to send the French Syracuse 4B and German Heinrich Hertz (H2Sat) satellites into geostationary orbit ends 27 years of service for Ariane 5, whose successor —Ariane 6— has been hit by technical delays until 2024 for operational use.

Until recently, Europe depended on the Ariane 5 and its 11-ton+ capacity for heavy missions, as well as Russia’s Soyuz launcher for medium payloads and Italy’s Vega for light ones.

But Moscow last year withdrew access to the Soyuz amid tensions over Ukraine, and the upgraded Vega C remains grounded after the failure of its second launch in December, triggering what the head of the European Space Agency called a “crisis” of space launch.

The chief executive of Airbus, which co-owns ArianeGroup with France’s Safran, said in June that the gap highlighted Europe’s “vulnerability” in space. “All the pressure is now on Ariane 6,” Guillaume Faury told the Paris Air Forum.

The first test launch of Ariane 6 is scheduled for the end of the year depending on the tests to be carried out in the summer, with the first commercial operation scheduled for next year.