Ariane 5 lifts off on last mission as Europe faces space gap
Europe's Ariane 5 rocket on Wednesday blasted off from French Guiana for the final time, carrying two military communications satellites and leaving its nations with a vacuum in autonomous access to space for the first time in more than four decades. The 53-metre-tall, three-stage launcher left the launchpad in the French spaceport of Kourou on its 117th and final mission at 7 p.m.
local time (2300 GMT), according to a live webcast. The mission to deploy France's Syracuse 4B and Germany's Heinrich Hertz (H2Sat) satellites to geostationary orbit caps 27 years of service for Ariane 5, whose successor - Ariane 6 - has been hit by technical delays until 2024 for operational use.
Europe until recently depended on Ariane 5 and its 11-tonne-plus capacity for heavy missions, as well as Russia's Soyuz launcher for medium payloads and Italy's Vega for small ones. But Moscow last year withdrew access to Soyuz amid tensions over Ukraine and the upgraded Vega C remains grounded after the failure of its second launch in December, sparking what the head of the European Space Agency has termed a space launch "crisis." The CEO of Airbus, which co-owns manufacturer ArianeGroup with France's Safran, said in June the gap highlighted Europe's "vulnerability" in space.
"All pressure is now on Ariane 6," Guillaume Faury told the Paris Air Forum. The first test launch of Ariane 6 is expected at the end of the year depending on tests to be carried out in the summer, with the first commercial operation planned for next year.
The final launch of Ariane 5 was delayed last month for technical reasons and again this week because of weather. Led initially by France, Germany and the UK, Europe's Ariane series pioneered commercial launches but now
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