2023-07-05 10:30:10
Transfer of the Ariane-5 rocket to its launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana, on May 30, 2023. S. MARTIN
The countdown has begun at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou. If all goes well, on Wednesday, July 5, between 21:30 and 23:05 GMT, an Ariane 5 rocket will lift off with two satellites, one for observation – Syracuse 4B, for the French Directorate General of Armament – and another for telecommunications – Heinrich Hertz, for the German Space Agency.
In the Jupiter control room, the atmosphere will be all the more tense for this launch into geostationary orbit, 36,000 kilometers above Earth that is, since it will be the launcher’s last flight. The 117th launch will end a 27-year history, distinguished by over 80 successes.
This last mission takes place at a pivotal moment in space history. For decades, access to space had been restricted to large public institutions in the United States, Europe, Russia, and China. But a decade ago, Elon Musk revolutionized access with SpaceX. In 2013, the American billionaire made a name for himself in space launches to the point of becoming a model.
Today, his leadership continues to grow, boosted by the development of internet and 5G services requiring thousands of small satellites to be sent into low Earth orbit, some 500 kilometers above sea level, to ensure sound connections. With 100 launches planned in 2023, Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket will carry out almost as many launches as Ariane 5 did in its entire career. Yet, for over 25 years, the European rocket was the queen of space, ruling over its American rivals Delta (Boeing), Atlas (Lockheed Martin), and Russia’s Proton.
Ambitious goals
In 1985, even before the Ariane 4 rocket initiated its first flights, the European Space Agency (ESA) decided to think about the next version of the launcher, a more ambitious one that would put large satellites into orbit and carry out manned flights. At a meeting in Rome, a pre-study was launched along with two other projects: Hermes, a shuttle capable of carrying up to five astronauts, and Columbus, a space station operating 400 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. “Of these three major programs, only Ariane 5 has been completed,” said Jean-Marc Astorg, director of strategy at France’s National Centre for Space Studies (CNES).
“We designed a launcher that was very different from previous ones by designing new engines, doubling power and, above all, by choosing reliability with a redundancy of all circuits,” said Astorg, adding CNES was the Ariane program’s general contractor at the time. The evolution was so far-reaching that “we could very well have changed the name of the rocket, but we wanted to keep the image of success stemming from the Ariane 3 and 4 launchers,” according to Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of ESA between 2003 and 2015.
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