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For nearly three decades, the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Ariane 5 rocket has been a workhorse of uncrewed spaceflight. This rocket has lifted some of the most important and iconic satellites into orbit, but it’s reached the end of the road. With the launch on July 5, the ESA has officially retired the Ariane 5, but its replacement isn’t quite ready yet, which could be a problem for European aerospace efforts.
The Ariane 5 debuted in the mid-1990s as a cargo vehicle, but it was initially envisioned as the launch platform for a European space shuttle known as Hermes. Like the Russian Buran shuttle program, Europe’s reusable orbiter never made it to space, but the Ariane 5 has more than proved itself over the years.
In 117 launches, the Ariane 5 has suffered only two failures. For much of its career, this vehicle was responsible for half of all satellite launches. It’s been trusted for some of the most crucial cargo missions in the world, launching the Rosetta spacecraft that visited comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, Galileo GPS, the JUICE moon explorer, and the James Webb Space Telescope. That launch, at the tail end of 2021, perfectly illustrated why the Ariane 5 was such a reliable vehicle. The Webb launch went perfectly, with the rocket precisely delivering the telescope to the correct orbit. That saved the observatory from wasting its own fuel, giving it an estimated 20 years of operational life rather than 10 years.
The upcoming Ariane 6 rocket should debut in 2024.
Credit: ESA
The Ariane 5’s last launch wasn’t as momentous as those missions, but it still hoisted the pair of communication satellites into orbit just the same. The launch included a French defense satellite, Syracuse 4B, and a German demo spacecraft, Heinrich Hertz.
The ESA had hoped to have the Ariane 6 launch platform ready to go when the previous rocket was retired, but Ariane 6 is still in the testing phase. Eventually, the 62-meter Ariane 6 will take over most European launches, but in the meantime, the ESA will have to rely on vehicles like the SpaceX Falcon 9. The agency used SpaceX to launch the Euclid space telescope barely a week ago.
The ESA expects the Ariane 6 to begin flying next year, but it will still be an expendable vehicle, which means a new rocket for each mission. The ESA has made plans for SpaceX-style reusable rockets, but that technology won’t arrive until the 2030s.
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