After a wetsuit test on a launch pad in French Guiana, Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket is preparing for its inaugural launch.
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced during a press conference on 25 June that the test was a “complete success”. After years of long delays, ESA is confident that their Ariane 6 rocketfor the future of Europe’s ability to run satellites to Earth orbit, will finally peel off the ground. ESA and the French launch provider Arianespacewhich commercially manages the rocket, are preparing for a July 9 launch. The three-hour window opens at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT).
“Of course, we are still analyzing the data – it may take a few more days. But everything we have so far says that our baby Ariane 6 is working perfectly,” said Lucia Linares, head of strategy and institutional launches at ESA. .
The exam took place on June 20. Operators first let the 295-foot (90-meter) rocket stand freely on the pad, without support from its gantry. time at all. They then cooled the rocket down to cryogenic temperatures and pumped it into fuel water, all the while performing system checks, before running it down completely in preparation for the actual launch. ESA will release detailed test results later this week, but so far Ariane 6 appears to be performing as planned, mission managers said.
“All the verifications that have been done have not shown any anomalous behavior,” said Michel Bonnet, ESA’s director for the inaugural Ariane 6 flight. “So based on that, we are still very confident [July 9] launch date.”
Related: Finally: Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket is set to debut on July 9
Ariane 6 inaugural launch flight plan to low earth orbit (LEO) at an altitude of 320 miles (520 kilometers). This launch won’t just be a test flight – once in orbit, the rocket will be released nine cubesats. There are also four non-orbital experiments on board the Vinci Ariane 6 upper stage, incl device which will test the system for rapid localization of satellites and two capsule which will drop from orbit into the Pacific to test if they can re-enter Earth’s atmosphere successfully.
However, Vinci burns. The upper stage can be refired multiple times in orbit, which can allow a single launch to deploy multiple satellites at different altitudes—and, as planned for this first flight—deorbit the spacecraft, preventing it from drifting endlessly as debris or falling to Earth unchecked .
The stakes for European launch capacities are high. Ariane 6 is to replace the venerable Ariane 5, which took off last last year after 117 starts and 27 years of service. Since then, European launches have been dependent on other – mostly American – vehicles.
In these final days before launch, ESA and its partners want to highlight their dissatisfaction with this post-Ariane 5 status quo – and the opportunity for Ariane 6 to change it if successful. “This is an important moment in European space history and for European sovereignty,” said Carina Laveau, director of space transport at CNES, France’s national space agency.
Ariane 6 is planned for about 9 to 12 launches per year until 2026. Even before the vehicle’s inaugural flight, national space agencies and private companies have already booked 30 missions. The most famous customer is Amazon, which has so far ordered 18 launches for its planned launch Kuiper satellite constellation.
This first launch was actually originally planned for 2020, but a series of technical issues – coupled with disruptions caused by COVID-19 and Russian invasion of Ukraine — caused repeated delays. The failure Europe’s Vega C launch in late 2022 only raised the stakes for ESA when it came to this new rocket.
However, Ariane 6 officials expressed optimism that any difficulties are firmly behind them. “We’re ready to go,” Linares said.