Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket has completed its final flight, marking the end of a successful era for the launch vehicle. The rocket successfully placed two payloads into their planned geostationary transfer orbits. The payloads included the German aerospace agency DLR’s Heinrich Hertz experimental communications satellite and the French communications satellite Syracuse 4b.
The final flight, known as Flight VA261, took off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 22:00 UTC on July 5, 2023. The mission lasted approximately 33 minutes from lift-off to the release of the final payload. The total payload mass at liftoff was about 7700 kg, with 7000 kg dedicated to the two satellites and the remaining mass allocated to payload adapters and carrying structures.
This flight marked the 117th outing for the Ariane 5 rocket, which has been in service since 1996. Throughout its history, the rocket has successfully launched numerous commercial and European institutional missions. Notable payloads include ESA’s Rosetta mission to study comets, Europe’s Galileo navigation satellites, and the James Webb Space Telescope. The second-to-last launch of the Ariane 5 rocket carried ESA’s Juice mission to Jupiter.
The Ariane 5 rocket was a significant improvement over its predecessor, the Ariane 4. It more than doubled the mass-to-orbit capacity of the Ariane 4 and was capable of launching two large telecommunications satellites on a single mission or pushing very large payloads into deep space.
The development of the Ariane series of launch vehicles was driven by Europe’s desire for an independent launch capability in the new space age. The project began in the 1960s with the goal of participating in the International Space Station and launching a European crewed spaceplane called Hermes. Although the Hermes project was abandoned, the Ariane 5 rocket played a crucial role in delivering Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle resupply spacecraft to the ISS.
The Ariane 5 rocket went through several iterations before culminating in the ECA variant, which flew most missions and has been exclusively used since 2019. The development of the Ariane series was a collaborative effort among European countries, leading to the creation of the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1975.
While the Ariane 5 rocket has completed its final flight, ESA and its member states are continuing their work in space transportation with the development of the Ariane 6 rocket. This newest addition to the Ariane family aims to meet the evolving market demands of the space industry.
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