Ariane 6 Successfully Flying For The First Time, Europe Again Achieves Independent Access To Space

JAKARTA - Tuesday night, July 9 the spaceport in French Guiana witnessed the inaugural flight of Ariane 6's highly anticipated rocket, the successor to Ariane 5 who retired last summer. This launch was a success although not everything went according to plan.

Ariane 6 slid into the sky after years of delays and exactly a year after Ariane's last flight 5. This launch is very important for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European space industry as a whole, as it provides Europe with independent access to space again.

Not only did Ariane 5 stop its service, but also a smaller rocket launcher, Vega-C, which is experiencing technical problems and must be stopped for a long time. With Ariane 6's maiden mission and Vega-C's planned return flight mission for November, ESA is relieved at least temporarily.

Ariane 6 is a two-stage rocket designed to carry two (A62) or four (A64) solid-fueled additional booster rockets. This rocket has a height of 63 meters (207 feet) and the A62 variant that flew yesterday can carry ten metric tons into low-Earth orbit (LEO).

In addition to the heavy load of the dumplings, above Ariane 6, there are several fixed experimental devices and small satellites including, among others, the small gamma-ray burst observatory GRBBeta (CubeSat 2U) which also has the smallest UV telescope in space with a size of only two centimeters.

Most of the spacecraft were released just over an hour after takeoff, at a point where missions were considered successful. However, the next technical demonstration to revive the Additional Propulsion Unit (APU) and restart the upper stage engine failed.

As a result, the top stage missed the desired trajectory and canceled the planned burning of the deorbit. Also, the last two reentry capsules from the unseparated payload of the spacecraft minimize the space debris caused by the failure.

Contents of Ariane 6

ArianeGroup, the rocket's main contractor, said during a post-flight press conference that it was not yet aware of the cause of the problem. Analysis and investigation will be carried out. What's more important is that these complications will not affect the upcoming flight.

ESA and ArianeGroup explained that failures occurred during the demonstration phase while testing its top-stage behavior and ability to restart in microgravity environments. However, these capabilities are specific to specific missions, so they will not cause delays in missions that do not use these maneuvers as part of their flight profiles.

The second flight of Ariane 6 is currently scheduled for December 2024 and plans to increase operations include six more flights by 2025.

This will be crucial for some customers who are looking forward to Ariane 6 to bring their cargo into orbit. One of them is Jeff Bezos and Amazon's constellation Kuiper who wants to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service.

To comply with the FCC license, Amazon will have to build half of the constellation 1,618 satellites in the summer of 2026. Ariane 6 is one of the four rockets that Bezos contracted to carry out this task. In total, Amazon bought 18 stronger A64 variant flights.