Europe's trusty Ariane 5 rocket leaves lasting legacy after 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.
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On its final flight earlier this month, the rocket launched the French communications satellite Syracuse 4b and the German aerospace agency’s Heinrich Hertz experimental communications satellite.
According to Toni Tolker-Nielsen, acting director of space transportation at the European Space Agency, reliability will be one of Ariane 5’s lasting legacies.
“Out of 117 Ariane 5 launches, 112 have been successful,” Tolker-Nielsen told RFI.
High-profile launches
He also listed some of Ariane 5’s noteworthy missions.
“We launched the Automated Transfer Vehicle [cargo spacecraft] five times to the International Space Station; half of the Galileo constellation [of navigation satellites]; a multitude of scientific and Earth observation missions like Envisat, BepiColombo, Herschel/Planck, Juice, and lately the James Webb Space Telescope.”
He added that on top of launching institutional missions, Ariane 5 dominated the commercial market, with a market share of 50 percent.
Ariane 5 will now be replaced by Ariane 6, Tolker-Nielsen says, “which is a very agile launcher and perfectly adapted to the market”.
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