Europe’s workhorse Ariane 5 rocket has blasted off for a final time after 27 years of launches. A big moment, but which comes at a difficult time for the continent’s space adventure faced with delays to next-generation Ariane 6 and Russia withdrawing its rockets. .
The 117th and final flight of the Ariane 5 rocket took place around 2200 GMT on Wednesday from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The launch had been postponed twice. It was originally scheduled on 16 June, but was called off because of problems with pyrotechnical lines in the rocket’s booster, which have since been replaced.
Tuesday’s launch was then delayed by bad weather.
The Wednesday night flight went off without a hitch, watched by hundreds of spectators, including former French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, and was greeted with applause.
Marie-Anne Clair, the director of the Guiana Space Centre, told French news agency AFP that Ariane 5’s final flight was “charged with emotion” for the teams in Kourou, where the rocket’s launches have been party of daily life for nearly three decades.
The final payload on Ariane 5 is a French military communications satellite and a German communications satellite.
The satellite “marks a major turning point for our armed forces: better performance and greater resistance to jamming,” French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu tweeted.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Ariane 5 had forever marked the French and European space adventure.
Webb and Juice
But the rocket would embark on what was ultimately a long string of successful launches.
