WASHINGTON — The second flight of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket, and its first commercial mission, has slipped from December to no earlier than mid-February, Arianespace announced Nov. 8.
The company said in a statement the next launch of the rocket was now projected to take place in the first quarter of 2024, “from mid-February.” The launch, the first of the rocket to be overseen by Arianespace, will carry the CSO 3 reconnaissance satellite for the French military.
In the months since the rocket’s mostly successful debut in July, officials with Arianespace and other organizations, such as the European Space Agency, had expected the vehicle’s second flight to take place before the end of this year, likely in December.
At a media briefing in mid-September, Stéphane Israël, chief executive of Arianespace, said the company expected that Ariane 6 launch to take place in December, shortly after the return to flight of the Vega C. That launch is currently scheduled for Dec. 3.
That September briefing coincided with an update into the anomaly that took place on the inaugural flight that prevented the rocket’s upper stage from performing a final deorbit burn. Engineers concluded that one temperature measurement exceeded a limit that prevented the stage’s auxiliary power unit (APU) from starting up ahead of the planned burn, and that a software change would correct that problem.
In the announcement of the new launch date, Arianespace did not mention any single issue that caused the launch to slip. It noted that only a “a small number of deviations” in data were noticed during the July launch, “which have been fully understood and are being addressed.” The APU software change has been implemented.
The company stated that the core and upper stages are still in their factories in France and Germany, respectively, and will “soon” be transported by ship to the French Guiana launch site. It added that it was working on final preparations to the launch facilities to support that launch and subsequent ones.
“After the successful inaugural flight on July 9, the teams from ArianeGroup and its partners retrieved and analyzed millions of data points,” Martin Sion, chief executive of ArianeGroup, the prime contractor for the Ariane 6, said in the statement. “The careful analysis enabled us to make a number of adjustments in preparation for Ariane 6’s future missions and confirm the quality of development of Europe’s new heavy-lift launcher and its ability to carry out all missions to all orbits.”
Asked about the status of the Ariane 6 at an Oct. 24 briefing after an ESA Council meeting, Josef Aschbacher, director general of ESA, said that since the next launch would be a commercial mission handled by Arianespace, he would defer to them on the schedule. “I can assure you we are on a good track for the next launches,” he said.
Arianespace said in its statement that the rescheduling of the upcoming launch to mid-February would not affect the schedule of later missions, although the company has not issued a formal schedule of those future launches. Steven Rutgers, chief commercial officer at Arianespace, said in September that the company expected to conduct six Ariane 6 launches in 2025.
