The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off for the last time on Wednesday, a farewell flight after 27 years of launches and at a difficult time for the European space industry.
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Faced with growing global competition, the old continent has unexpectedly found itself without the means to launch heavy missions into space independently due to delays of the next-generation Ariane 6 and the withdrawal of Russian rockets.
The 117th and last flight of an Ariane 5 rocket took place on Wednesday around 22:00 GMT from the European spaceport of Kourou (French Guyana).
The launch had been postponed twice. Initially it was scheduled for June 16, but it was suspended due to problems with the pyrotechnic ducts of the booster rocket, which have already been replaced. Another launch scheduled for Tuesday was delayed a day due to bad weather.
The latest payload for an Ariane 5 is a French and a German military communications satellite.
Marie-Anne Clair, director of the Guiana Space Center, told the AFP news agency that the last flight of an Ariane 5, whose launches have marked the life of Kourou for almost three decades, was “charged with emotion” for its teams.
Although it would become a reliable rocket, Ariane 5 got off to a rocky start. Its first flight exploded in 1996, moments after takeoff. The only such failure occurred in 2002.
Herve Gilibert, an engineer working on Ariane 5 at the time, called the 2002 explosion a “traumatic experience” that “left a deep impression on us.”
But the rocket would embark on what was ultimately a long string of successful launches. The initial stumbles had “the positive effect of keeping us absolutely on our toes,” Gilibert said.
James Webb and ‘Juice’
Ariane 5 earned such a reputation for reliability that NASA trusted it to launch the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope in late 2021.
The rocket’s penultimate launch was in April this year, launching the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ‘Juice’ spacecraft on its way to find out if Jupiter’s icy moons can harbor extraterrestrial life.
Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s head of space transport, declared that, in commercial terms, Ariane 5 had been “the spearhead of European space activities”.
The rocket could carry a much larger payload than its Ariane 4 predecessor, giving Europe a competitive edge and allowing the continent to establish itself in the communications satellite market.
![(FILE) This image released by NASA on July 12, 2022 shows Stephan's Quintet captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a visual grouping of five galaxies, in a new light. This huge mosaic is the largest JWST image to date, covering about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter. It contains more than 150 million pixels and has been built from nearly 1,000 separate image files.](https://s.france24.com/media/display/92cf08b6-8529-11ed-9802-005056bfb2b6/000_32XK8PB%20%282%29.jpg)
In anticipation of Ariane 6, which was initially scheduled to launch in 2020, Europe had been relying on Russian Soyuz rockets to carry heavy-lift missions into space.
But Russia withdrew space cooperation with Europe in response to sanctions imposed over Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The number of launches from Kourou fell from 15 in 2021 to six last year.
Another blow came in December, when the first commercial flight of the new generation Vega C light launcher failed. Another problem was detected in the Vega C’s engine last week, which will likely delay its return.
Hard times
The launcher market is increasingly dominated by SpaceXthe American company of billionaire Elon Musk, whose rockets take off once a week.
Lacking other options, ESA was forced to turn to the Falcon 9 of SpaceX to successfully launch its Euclid Space Telescope on Saturday.
ESA will also use a rocket SpaceX to launch the observation mission satellites earthcare.
![The SpaceX Starship rocket on the launch pad at SpaceX's Boca Chica starbase as seen from South Padre Island, Texas on April 17, 2023.](https://s.france24.com/media/display/c8fdb582-dd25-11ed-acca-005056bf30b7/000_33DD22W.jpg)
It is not yet clear how the agency will launch the next round of satellites for the European Union’s Galileo global navigation system.
At the Paris Air Show earlier this month, ESA chief Josef Aschbacher acknowledged that these were “difficult times”, adding that everyone was “working hard” to get Ariane 6 and Vega-C ready.
Ariane 6 was unveiled at the Kourou launch pad earlier this month, ahead of a test ignition of its Vulcain 2.1 engine.
Since the new rocket requires less personnel and maintenance, 190 of the 1,600 jobs at the Kourou spaceport are to be cut.
*With AFP; adapted from its original in English
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