Ariane 5 lifts off on last mission as Europe faces space gap

OHB SE

05/07/2023 23:01

By Joey Roulette and Tim Hepher
       July 5 (Reuters) - 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) according to a live webcast.
    The mission to deploy France's Syracuse 4B and Germany's
Heinrich Hertz (H2Sat) 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.

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Europe plans first Ariane 6 rocket launch in Q4 of 2023   
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 (Reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris and Joey Roulette in
Washington
Editing by Ben Klayman and Matthew Lewis)
 ((tim.hepher@thomsonreuters.com; +33 1 49 49 54 52; Reuters
Messaging: tim.hepher.thomsonreuters@reuters.net))