2024-08-27 09:30:14
The Ariane-6 rocket finally took off for the first time on July 9, 2024 from the Guiana Space Center. Did you miss the event? Techniques de l’ingénieur looks back at the strategic and commercial importance of this new European launcher.
It is a success, four years behind schedule… On July 9, 2024, the Ariane-6 rocket made its maiden flight from the Guiana Space Center. This launch notably allowed the placing into orbit of around ten “cubesats”, of the cubic microsatellites, developed by universities, scientists and NASA. The demonstration flight confirmed the launcher’s ability to escape Earth’s gravity and reach different altitudes. The only downside: the third ignition of the engine, which was supposed to allow the upper stage to re-enter the atmosphere and fall back into the Pacific, did not occur.
Ariane-6 will be able, like Ariane-5, to place satellites in geostationary orbit, at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers. But it will also be able to place satellite constellations in orbit a few hundred kilometers from Earth. For this, the upper stage of the rocket has the Vinci relightable engine. During the flight, it was successfully ignited twice to bring the upper stage to where it released the “cubesats”.
Autonomous access to the recovered space
This Ariane-6 flight was strategic for the Europeans. In a context of geopolitical tensions, it gives Europeans autonomous access to space. For a year, this was no longer the case. And for good reason: during the transition period between the two Ariane launchers, Europe had to use the Russian Soyuz medium launcher. A path abandoned since the war in Ukraine. At the same time, no launch of the new European Vega-C light launcher has been carried out after its accident on takeoff from Kourou on December 20, 2022.
Europeans will no longer have to rely solely on American, Indian or Chinese space launchers to access space. Above all, Ariane-6 offers Europeans an alternative solution to the American giant SpaceX. Thanks to its reusable Falcon-9 rockets, Elon Musk’s company has quickly established itself as one of the market leaders and remains several steps ahead. SpaceX launches about two Falcon-9s per week, while Ariane-6 was designed to allow ten to twelve takeoffs per year.
A public and private order book
The first operational and commercial launch of Ariane-6 should take place at the end of the year with the French military observation satellite CSO-3. The challenge will then be to successfully increase the rate of flights: six are planned for 2025 and eight the following year. In June, Stéphane Israël, executive chairman of Arianespace, was delighted. “ With 30 missions in the pipeline, Ariane-6 has already gained the trust of its institutional and commercial customers. We are preparing to carry out the second launch of Ariane-6 by the end of the year, then to increase the pace to aim for around ten launches per year at cruising speed.
The commercial operation of the launcher will be ensured by Arianespace. Its autonomous capacity to reach Earth orbit and deep space allows it to meet the needs of customers from all horizons, for institutional and commercial missions. With its two configurations 62 and 64 (with 2 or 4 solid boosters) and its upper stage that can be reignited up to 4 times, Ariane-6 will be able to respond to any launch mission.details at The DispatchJulio Monreal Hijar, space transportation consultant at ESA.
Side institutional orders, Ariane-6 will be able to count on governments and the European Union for European navigation, Earth observation, science and security programs, such as Galileo or Copernicus. On the business side, Ariane-6 already has an order for 18 launches for Amazon, for its Kuiper satellite constellation, a high-speed internet access service by satellite.
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