Europe's trusty Ariane 5 rocket leaves a lasting legacy after its final flight.
The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off for the last time on 6 July from the European Space Agency's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, leaving behind it a stellar track record. Reliability will be one of Ariane 5’s lasting legacies.
“Out of 117 Ariane 5 launches, 112 have been successful”.
The Ariane 5 rocket is taking off for the last time. It's the end of an era for a launch vehicle that helped establish Europe as a major player in the space industry.
The venerable Ariane 5 rocket will lift off for a last time, from Kourou, French Guiana, carrying the French Syracuse 4B military satellite and German Heinrich Hertz satellite to geostationary transfer orbit.
Launch window: 1800-1905 EDT / 2200-2305 UTC.
After a string of 111 successful launches, Ariane 5 will be replaced by the lower-cost Ariane 6, scheduled for its maiden voyage in late 2023 or early 2024.
Weather in Kourou, French Guiana, appears to be favorable for the launch of Ariane5 this evening. There are thunderstorms in the area all day, but they are forecast to die down during the launch window time of 7:00 - 8:05 p.m. local time.
Here is a video tribute to the Ariane 5 launch vehicle and its 117 launches over 25 years.
Notable payloads include ESA’s comet-chasing Rosetta, a dozen of Europe’s Galileo navigation satellites, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and, in April 2023, ESA’s Juice mission to Jupiter.
Ariane 5 launch conditions looking good. All LEDs are green in the control room for Flight VA261.
Webcast starts at 5:30 p.m. EDT at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWIKtG5HKbk
Ariane 5, on its final mission, has successfully deployed the two satellites into GTO.
After 25 years of excellence, Ariane 5 now passes the baton to Ariane 6.
Here is a graphic showing the trajectory from the elliptical Geo Transfer Orbit (GTO) to the final circular geo-synchronous orbit.
When the payload reaches the apogee at the GEO altitude of 35,786 km, it fires its engines in such a way that it enters onto the circular GEO orbit and stays there.
Typically, the payload is entered into an orbit slightly below GEO, and then raised when it reaches its final orbital slot position.