Mighty Send-Off: Final Ariane 5 Lifts Off From French Guiana

The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off for the final time Wednesday night (July 5) after 27 years of bringing European and other satellites to orbit. The last Ariane 5 brought Germany's Heinrich-Hertz-Satellit testbed and the French military satellite SYRACUSE 4B to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).

Ariane 5 lifted off at 18:00 EDT (22:00 UTC) at the Guiana Space Center near Kourou, French Guiana.

"This is the last time we're doing this, and we would be lying if we said we're not tearing up a bit," tweeted the rocket's builder, ArianeGroup, "this is the last live tweet of an Ariane 5 launch!"

Ariane 5's final tally as of the final launch was 112 fully successful missions in 117 flights, putting 239 satellites into space, including NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

Other major satellites the rocket launched include the Herschel Space Observatory, BepiColombo, the Rosetta comet probe, and the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE).

The Future of European Spaceflight

The Ariane 5 is "hanging up her boots" to retire and for its "younger sister" Ariane 6 to take over, said Arianespace webstream host Katy Haswell. "Very exciting times ahead," she added.

However, the rocket's retirement marked a major shift in the international launch marketplace as it left Europe without a heavy-lift rocket until the Ariane 6 became available in 2024. This meant the future rocket would get delayed in competing with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

In the meantime, since it could not use Russian Soyuz rockets, the European Space Agency had to rely on American-made rockets like the Falcon 9 to lift its heavy payloads.

Ariane 6 vs. Falcon 9

Meanwhile, SpaceX launched ESA's Euclid space telescope to accompany Webb on the Earth-Sun Lagrange point 2. Euclid was supposed to fly aboard the Soyuz, but the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine compelled them to fly aboard Falcon 9. ESA would also have to launch its Hera asteroid probe aboard Falcon 9 in 2024.

"SpaceX has undeniably changed the launcher market paradigm as we know it," ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher wrote in May. He also admitted that Europe found itself in an "acute launcher crisis" in its own access to space and with "no real launcher vision beyond 2030.

Aschbacher also looked forward to ensuring the successful inaugural flight of Ariane 6 and its primary mission of finding a balance between maintaining and exceeding Ariane 5's performance while affordable to satisfy European and commercial needs.

Depending on the configuration, the Ariane 6 is expected to cost between $70 million and $125 million per flight. However, unlike the partially reusable Falcon 9, there are no reusability plans for the Ariane 6. Projections show it will not fly often enough to make booster recovery, refurbishment, and re-launch cost-effective.

Tags

European Space Agency, ESA, Europe