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 launch pad in the French spaceport of Kourou on its 117th and final mission at 7 p.m. local time (2300 GMT), deploying two satellites on schedule roughly 30 minutes later, according to a live webcast. “Ariane 5 is now over, and Ariane 5 has perfectly finished its work,” Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel said on the webcast. The mission to send France’s Syracuse 4B and Germany’s Heinrich Hertz 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.
Full story : Ariane 5 launches final mission as Europe faces space gap.
