Europe completes final launch of Ariane-5

The final flight of Europe’s heavy-lift rocket, the Ariane-5, has successfully been completed.

The vehicle, which supported the continent’s access to space for nearly three decades, finished its career by acquiring two communications satellites. This was the last mission for the vehicle.

It is generally agreed upon that the launcher was a very successful one; out of 117 attempts, there were only two instances in which it failed.

However, Europe is now in a precarious position due to the Ariane-5’s retirement because there is no suitable substitute to take its place.

It is possible that the Ariane-6, the next-generation rocket, will debut in the following year because it is still being developed and tested.

To make matters even worse, Europe is no longer able to employ Russian Soyuz rockets, and the continent’s smaller vehicle, the Vega-C, has been put on hold after suffering a failure in flight in December of last year.

Satellites from Europe are now using services provided by the United States because they have no other choice. The €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion) Euclid satellite telescope was successfully launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 from Florida on Saturday.

Recent comments made by Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency, in which he stated that “Europe finds itself… in an acute launcher crisis” were sparked by the inability of European nations to produce their own rockets.

As is customary, the French Guiana spaceport of Kourou was used as the launch site for the final mission on Wednesday.

The two “passengers” on board were a German demonstration spacecraft called Heinrich Hertz and a French defense satellite called Syracuse 4B. Both of these “passengers” were satellites used for defense purposes.

At exactly 19:00 local time, which corresponds to 22:00 GMT and 23:00 British Summer Time, the Ariane was able to lift off successfully.

Dr. Aschbacher predicted that the Ariane-5 would go down in history as an extraordinary vehicle.

He said, “The performance and the accuracy of the Ariane-5 have been quite unique. However, I’m convinced that the Ariane-6 will have the same performance and the same accuracy once it’s on the launch pad.”

On December 25, 2021, the rocket successfully launched the James Webb Space Telescope, which cost $10 billion (£8 billion) at the time. This was possibly the best demonstration of the rocket’s legendary accuracy.

Because the launch into orbit was carried out with such pinpoint accuracy, the observatory did not need to expend any of its own fuel to adjust its trajectory, which practically doubled the amount of time it was expected to remain functioning, from 10 to 20 years.

Because of increased competition from the United States, the cost of manufacturing the Ariane-5 became unsustainable, which led to the commissioning of a new European heavy-lift rocket.

The reusable Falcons developed by Elon Musk, founder of the business SpaceX, have caused a disruption in the launch market by driving down prices for competitors like the Ariane.

Although it is anticipated that the Ariane-6 will be at least 40% less expensive than the Ariane-5, the design will continue to be a “expendable” one in which a whole new rocket will be required for each flight.

Reusability is becoming more of a focus in Europe, but the technologies required to make it a reality won’t be available until the 2030s.

In the meantime, Mr. Musk is working on developing even larger rockets that are anticipated to bring launch costs down even further.

After lifting off from the ground on Wednesday for the very last time, the Ariane-5 rocket successfully deployed both the Heinrich Hertz and Syracuse 4B satellites on their way to a geostationary transfer orbit around half an hour later.

Ariane-5 is put out of service after successfully launching more than 230 satellites into orbit, which is equivalent to approximately one thousand tons of hardware.

High-profile missions have included the launch of the comet-chaser Rosetta (2004), the huge environmental watcher Envisat (2002), the 20-ton space station freighter, ATV (2008), and most recently, Europe’s Jupiter moons explorer, Juice (2023). James Webb was one of the most prominent missions to be launched during this time period.

In the 1980s, the idea of using a rocket to propel an astronaut shuttle known as Hermes led to the conception of the rocket. This concept was scrapped due to the high expense associated with it, and the vehicle was put into operation in 1996 for the sole purpose of lofting satellites.

For a significant portion of its lifetime, it was responsible for launching around fifty percent of all of the large communications satellites.

 

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