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Full screen on the image is the launch of an Ariane 6 rocket in July 2024. Photo: Stephan Corvaja/AP/TT
On Thursday, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) new carrier rocket Ariane 6 will carry out its first real assignment.
The rocket was postponed from the space base in French Guyana in South America at 17.30, Swedish time, with a French military satellite in the cargo.
The launch went as planned and the main step was separated from the rocket, according to French operator Arianespace’s webcast.
If the assignment succeeds, this would mean that European countries can send up large satellites in orbit for the first time since Russia limited access to its Soyuz rockets after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Europe has only ten military satellites – five French and five Italian – thus significantly fewer than the US and China, which have several hundred such, according to French general Philippe Steininger.