Two months ago, the European Space Agency was still hoping for a launch at the end of the year. But it is now counting on next year, when the last Ariane 5 rocket took off on July 5.
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We will still have to wait before discovering the successor to Ariane 5. The maiden flight of Ariane 6 will not take place before next year, officially confirmed the European Space Agency (ESA), Tuesday August 8, in A press release published online. This program, launched ten years ago, has experienced many delays. These are all the more visible as the Ariane 5 rocket took off for the last time on July 5, notably bowing out due to high cost.
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More powerful and more competitive with costs halved, the new version was designed to withstand Elon Musk’s American company SpaceX, which carries out more than one shot per week. Tests of the launch system were carried out in Kourou on July 18, with in particular operations to fill the tanks of the central stage, underlines the ESA. But the last part of the test, relating to the ignition of the Vulcain 2.1 engine, could not be completed. A new test is scheduled for August 29, before a press conference on September 4, devoted to the next stages of the tests including a dress rehearsal on September 26.
The results will allow “ define a launch period for the maiden flight of Ariane 6 in 2024″, slips the ESA at the turn of a sentence of its press release. Originally scheduled for 2020, it has been steadily pushed back over the years and was expected at the end of the year at best. These successive postponements have not prevented the order book from filling up, since around thirty launches are already planned. “From 2025, there is a huge order book to deliver”, had also commented, in mid-March, Stéphane Israel, president of Arianespace. It now remains to make this program a reality, and to fill the void from which Europe has suffered since the end of Ariane 5.