Twenty-seven years of service and one last successful launch: the Ariane 5 rocket bowed out on Wednesday, July 5 evening, at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou by sending two satellites into orbit.
After two postponements, − on June 16 for a technical reason and then on July 4 because of the weather − Ariane-5 took off successfully at 7 p.m. local time (Thursday at midnight, Paris time). After about thirty minutes, the French military communications satellite (Syracuse 4B) and the German telecommunications satellite (Heinrich-Hertz) separated from the launcher to be placed in orbit.
The putting into orbit of the French satellite “marks a major turning point for our armies: better performance and better resistance to jamming”, welcomed on Twitter the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu.
Difficult beginnings followed by a series of successes
This final Ariane-5 launch took place under the eyes of hundreds of spectators gathered on site, including local officials and the former French Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira. Some collaborators let their joy burst after the successful takeoff, while applause greeted the second separation.
It was the 117th flight for the rocket, which had a rocky start: it exploded just after liftoff on its maiden flight in 1996. The aircraft then suffered only one more failure, in 2002 “It took two years to get back in flight,” said ArianeGroup prime contractor technical director Hervé Gilibert.
The rest of the story is a chain of successes, Ariane-5 forging a reputation for reliability such that NASA even entrusts it with its emblematic James Webb telescope, worth ten billion dollars. The successful launch on Christmas Day in 2021 marks the apotheosis for the one who sent the Rosetta probes to comet Tchouri (2004) and Juice to Jupiter in April 2023.
Twelve countries participated in the manufacture of this heavy launcher, “the spearhead of space Europe”, in the words of Daniel Neuenschwander, director of space transport at the European Space Agency (ESA).
Resist SpaceX
With a launch capacity doubled compared to Ariane-4, the fifth of the name allows Europe to impose itself on the satellite market, taking advantage of a “trough” on the American side. A situation reversed since.
This farewell flight of Ariane-5 will be followed by long months of emptiness while waiting for the future number 6 – at best 2024 – whose deployment suffers from cumulative delays. More powerful and more competitive with costs halved compared to its predecessor, Ariane-6 was designed to withstand Elon Musk’s American company SpaceX, which carries out more than one launch per week.
The tests for his qualification are in full swing, but the atmosphere is gloomy in Kourou. The end of Ariane-5 will result in 190 job cuts out of 1,600, as the new rocket has reduced manpower and maintenance requirements.