Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket launched for the first time following political issues and finance debates. Europe’s newest rocket, standing 56 meters (184 feet) tall, launched on Tuesday (July 9). It lifted off from the launch pad at around 4:00 p.m. local time (19:00 GMT), bringing an end to Europe’s long-running halt on the rocket project.
The propulsion and trajectory are fine, the mission’s launch director announced to shouts from the European Space Agency headquarters in Paris for the launch team. We discovered a few issues with the data storage system while validating the data before to uploading, but everything functioned as expected. The launch is not a commercial mission, but if everything goes well, European agencies, companies, and universities intend to conduct satellite launch tests.
Ariane 6 was developed by ArianeGroup, a joint venture between Airbus and Safran, at a cost of around 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion). It was originally scheduled to be available in 2020, but there have been delays. Since the ESA halted building of the Ariane 5 rocket more than a year ago, Europe has struggled to launch its own satellites into space independently; the war in Ukraine has prompted the West to terminate connections with Russia’s Soyuz rocket projects; and Italy’s Vega-C has been delayed. A new generation of tiny European commercial rockets was likewise hampered by the development status. Europe has been unable to launch satellites or other rockets into space without relying on rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Ariane 6 is scheduled for one more launch this year, with six in 2025 and eight in 2026.