Ariane 5 – the rocket that has carried European satellites into space for almost 30 years – launched today for the last time from the French Guiana space base.

On its final mission after nearly 40 years, Ariane 5 carried two military communications satellites into space.

The launch was a complete success but now Europe must rush to fill the gap.

“Ariane 5 has forever marked the French and European space adventure,” the French president tweeted.

“From its base in Kourou, French Guiana, it has made possible the most iconic missions such as James Webb, Juice, Galileo, Rosetta and so many more!

A new history will be written with Ariane 6,” wrote Emmanuel Macron.

The successor state

With the tectonic changes that have taken place in the field of New Space, Ariane 5 has already been recognized by Europeans for a decade as having to give way to a new space carrier, especially as SpaceX’s rocket, the Falcon 9, has great success and low cost thanks to the reuse of its structural elements.

For this purpose the Ariane 6 launcher was prepared. This new rocket is an advanced version of the Ariane 5 with a new design for the solid fuel booster and Vulcain main engines.

The original plan was for Ariane 6 to have already performed its first flight in 2020. But today, in the summer of 2023, all estimates converge on the new Ariane 6 flying in the new year, probably towards the summer of 2024.

Although Ariane 6 has been developed to compete with Falcon 9, the European Space Agency thus needs to carry out space missions in another way in the interim. It is for this reason that the European DNA Euclid space telescope was recently launched on a Falcon 9, since Ariane 6 will be operationally ready probably in 2025. The same will happen with the EarthCARE satellite, which will necessarily have to be launched on a Falcon 9 after Europe’s other medium rocket, the Vega C, ran into issues.

All this means that with the last flight of Ariane 5, Europe, although in the near future it has in front of it the successor Ariane 6 as well as tests for reusable new systems, will open a champagne to celebrate the retirement of its impressive space child , but it should accelerate on its next space day.