The Ariane 6 rocket completed its first launch, it also carries a Slovak satellite – Space – Science and Technology

After four years of delays, the new European launch vehicle Ariane 6 took off on its first flight on Tuesday. The launch from the Kourou Cosmodrome in French Guiana took place at 4:00 p.m. local time (9:00 p.m. CET). The rocket also carries the fourth Slovak GRBBeta satellite.

Ariane 6 has 17 technical “passengers” on board, including 11 university microsatellites and several scientific experiments. The Slovak GRBBeta satellite is the direct successor of the GRBAlpha satellite, which recorded gamma rays from deep space. The CubeSat type satellite has a size of 2U, its dimensions without deployed antennas are 10 × 10 × 22.7 centimeters.

The Ariane 6 test flight should last two hours and 51 minutes. Its predecessor Ariane 5 took off for the last time on July 5, 2023 — it was its 117th launch, of which only two failed.

Rockets from the competing American company SpaceX then began to be used to place satellites into orbit. The situation was further aggravated by the war in Ukraine. Previously, ESA could also rely on Russian Soyuz rockets, but cooperation with Moscow was stopped.

“Ariane 6 is crucial for Europe, which absolutely needs independent access to space,” European Space Agency (ESA) Director Josef Aschbacher told AFP.

According to ESA, there are already orders for 30 commercial flights — the first should take place by the end of this year, six in 2025 and eight in 2026.

Eighteen orders come from the American Internet giant Amazon, for which Ariane 6 is to put satellites into orbit for the Kuiper project, enabling access to the Internet via satellite. It is a competitor to the Starlink system, which is backed by billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX.

Ariane 6 is significantly cheaper than its predecessor. Its development by ArianeGroup cost around four billion euros. It can deliver satellites to different orbits and can be equipped with two or four auxiliary engines. Its height is around 60 meters and its weight with a maximum load of around 900 tons. Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen serve as fuel for the rocket’s main stage engine.