KOUROU, France – Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket made a triumphant debut on Tuesday, launching satellites into orbit and marking the continent’s renewed access to space.
After four years of delays and setbacks, the successful launch from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 4 PM local time (1900 GMT) signaled a significant milestone for European space efforts. This event restored Europe’s independent capability to send missions into space, which had been absent for the past year.
European Space Agency head Josef Aschbacher called it “a historic day for Europe,” while Philippe Baptiste of France’s CNES space agency proclaimed, “Europe is back.”
Despite a slight trajectory deviation towards the end of the flight, resulting in the rocket not completing its planned re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, the mission’s primary goal of deploying satellites was achieved. Walther Pelzer of Germany’s DLR space agency celebrated the “great success” despite the minor setback.
In the Jupiter control room, operations head Raymond Boyce’s announcement of “propulsion nominal” brought applause, which grew louder when microsatellites were successfully delivered into orbit. NASA chief Bill Nelson hailed the launch as a “giant leap forward” for ESA on social media platform X.
ArianeGroup CEO Martin Sion highlighted that the mission would be fully complete once the rocket’s reusable Vinci engine re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, expected about three hours after liftoff.
The Ariane 6’s mission carried university microsatellites, various experiments, and two atmospheric re-entry capsules. The rocket’s upper stage Vinci engine will later be directed back into the Pacific Ocean to avoid contributing to space debris.
Historically, first launches of new rockets have a high failure rate, but Ariane 6 defied those odds. Ariane 5, its predecessor, had only one complete failure out of 117 launches over two decades, despite a rocky start in 1996.
Thousands watched the launch in Toulouse, France, on a big screen at the Cite de l’Espace museum, with Catherine Gerard, 56, describing the experience as “something a bit magical.”
As space competition intensifies, particularly with SpaceX’s frequent Falcon 9 launches, Europe has struggled with launching delays and geopolitical tensions. Following Russia’s withdrawal of Soyuz rockets and issues with the Vega-C light launcher, Ariane 6’s successful launch is a critical step forward.
The European Space Agency plans six launches next year and eight in 2026, with an order book of 29 missions, including deployments for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation.
However, the program faced a setback when Europe’s weather satellite operator EUMETSAT chose SpaceX’s Falcon 9 over Ariane 6 due to “exceptional circumstances,” a decision ESA chief Josef Aschbacher found “difficult to understand.”