{"id":785487,"date":"2024-07-09T17:42:50","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T22:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=785487"},"modified":"2024-07-09T17:42:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T22:42:50","slug":"ariane-6-rockets-debut-puts-europe-back-in-the-launch-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=785487","title":{"rendered":"Ariane 6 Rocket&#8217;s Debut Puts Europe Back in the Launch Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Europe\u2019s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket rose today for the first time from its South American spaceport, ending a yearlong launch gap caused by the Ariane 5\u2019s retirement.<\/p>\n<p>The heavy-lift launch vehicle\u2019s demonstration flight began with liftoff at 4 p.m. local time (19:00 GMT) from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, and continued with satellite deployments in orbit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA completely new rocket is not launched often, and success is far from guaranteed,\u201d Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency\u2019s director general, said in a statement. \u201cI am privileged to have witnessed this historic moment when Europe\u2019s new generation of the Ariane family lifted off \u2013 successfully \u2013 effectively reinstating European access to space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-167719\"\/><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ariane 6 launch\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CCMNpzHmtDc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>ESA and its partners have been working on the two-stage Ariane 6 since the early 2010s as an upgrade to the Ariane 5 series, which lofted more than 100 spacecraft (including NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope) into orbit beginning in 1998. The Ariane 6 development cost is estimated at nearly $4 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The first Ariane 6 was originally planned for 2020, but technical issues and the COVID-19 pandemic forced delays. After last year\u2019s final Ariane 5 mission, Europe\u2019s launch industry could offer only the Vega small-lift launch vehicle, leaving a gap in the medium- to heavy-lift market.<\/p>\n<p>The market for the Ariane 6 is dramatically different from what it was when the Ariane 5 entered service more than a quarter-century ago. Thanks to SpaceX and other commercial ventures, rocket reusability is becoming the standard in the industry \u2014 raising questions about how competitive non-reusable rockets like the Ariane 6 can be. <\/p>\n<p>ArianeGroup, a joint venture between Airbus and Safran, is counting on Ariane 6\u2019s success. But in January, The Financial Times quoted Aschbacher as saying \u201cthere is no guarantee\u201d that ArianeGroup would continue to be Europe\u2019s launch company of choice.<\/p>\n<p>The Ariane 6 line features a modular design that can be adapted for missions to low Earth orbit or to deep space. For today\u2019s mission, known as VA262, the rocket\u2019s core stage was augmented by two side-mounted solid rocket boosters. Another configuration calls for four strap-on boosters for heavy-lift missions. The four-booster configuration can deliver up to 21.6 metric tons to low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An overview of Europe\u2019s new rocket Ariane 6. Credit: ESA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Today\u2019s launch sent the Ariane 6\u2019s upper stage to an altitude of about 600 kilometers (373 miles). The mission plan called for deploying eight satellites and activating five onboard experiments. Another objective involved demonstrating the upper stage\u2019s ability to relight its Vinci engine for orbital adjustments and deorbiting. Two experimental re-entry capsules were supposed to be released as the mission wound down.<\/p>\n<p>In an update posted to the X social-media platform, ESA said the technology demonstration phase \u201chas shown an unexpected result which will only affect the end of the mission.\u201d Preliminary reports suggested that the upper stage\u2019s auxiliary power unit suffered an anomaly that resulted in a premature engine shutdown. <\/p>\n<p>The next Ariane 6 mission is scheduled to put France\u2019s CSO-3 spy satellite into orbit later this year. About 30 Ariane 6 launches are said to be booked already, including 18 launches for Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper satellites. <\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-block sd-like jetpack-likes-widget-wrapper jetpack-likes-widget-unloaded\" id=\"like-post-wrapper-24000880-167719-668dbc0464ec8\" data-src=\"https:\/\/widgets.wp.com\/likes\/?ver=13.2#blog_id=24000880&amp;post_id=167719&amp;origin=www.universetoday.com&amp;obj_id=24000880-167719-668dbc0464ec8&amp;n=1\" data-name=\"like-post-frame-24000880-167719-668dbc0464ec8\" data-title=\"Like or Reblog\">\n<h3 class=\"sd-title\">Like this:<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"button\"><span>Like<\/span><\/span> <span class=\"loading\">Loading&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sd-text-color\"\/><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/167719\/ariane-6-rockets-debut-puts-europe-back-in-the-launch-game\/?rand=772204\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Europe\u2019s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket rose today for the first time from its South American spaceport, ending a yearlong launch gap caused by the Ariane 5\u2019s retirement. The heavy-lift launch&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":785488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-785487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genaero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=785487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/785488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=785487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=785487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=785487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}