Getting to Space

A space agency without a way of reaching space depends on someone else. Europe learned this early, and the rockets of the Ariane family, launched from a site in South America, are what turned a collection of satellite builders into a space power. This chapter looks at why Europe wanted its own launchers, how Ariane grew from the 1973 bargain (Chapter 2), why the launch site is in French Guiana, a famous failure in 1996 that is a favourite lesson for software engineers, and how the arrival of new competitors and a war changed the picture. The broad story is secure, but dates and flight records change, so the chapter flags what should be checked and stops at a stated cut-off.

Why Europe Wanted Its Own Rockets

The argument for independent access to space is partly about money and partly about control. If a country or group can only launch satellites on someone else's rocket, the owner of the rocket decides when, whether and on what terms. A story often told in this connection is that in the early 1970s the United States agreed to launch a joint European communications satellite only on condition that it was used for experimental purposes and not commercially, which showed European governments how dependent they were. The story is widely repeated, but the exact terms should be checked. Whatever the precise details, it is the standard explanation for why France pressed for a launcher and why the others agreed.

Ariane: From the 1973 Bargain to a Business

France led the development of Ariane, as agreed in 1973. The first rocket flew from the launch site at Kourou in French Guiana in December 1979 (check the date). A company, Arianespace, was set up in 1980 to sell launches to customers, and it is generally described as the first commercial launch company. Over the next decades the Ariane family grew in power. The earlier versions, Ariane 1 to 4, carried commercial communications satellites for customers around the world and made Europe a leading provider of such launches for many years.

Kourou

The launch site is in French Guiana, a French overseas territory on the northeast coast of South America. Its position is the reason it was chosen.

• Near the equator. The Earth spins fastest at the equator, and a rocket launched eastward gains some of that speed, which allows it to carry more or use less fuel, especially for satellites placed in a high orbit above the equator.
• Open sea to the east. Rockets fly out over the Atlantic Ocean, so spent stages fall into the sea and not on populated land.
• French territory. It is part of France, which gives the project a stable legal and political base inside Europe.

The centre was built by France in the 1960s, and ESA and France share its use. Later rockets, including the small Vega, also fly from there.

Ariane 5 and the 1996 Failure

Ariane 5 was a much larger rocket, designed to replace Ariane 4. Its first flight, on 4 June 1996, ended in disaster: the rocket veered off course and destroyed itself less than a minute after lift-off. The satellites it carried, a set of four scientific spacecraft called Cluster, were lost (they were later rebuilt and flown). Nobody was hurt. An inquiry found the cause in the software.

The failure was costly and embarrassing, and the programme recovered. Ariane 5 went on to a long run of successful launches and was for many years one of the most reliable commercial rockets in the world. It launched major scientific missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope in December 2021 (Chapter 6), and was retired in 2023 (check the date).

Vega: A Smaller Rocket

Alongside the large Ariane, Europe built a smaller rocket, Vega, which first flew in 2012 and is intended for light satellites, especially for Earth observation. An improved version, Vega-C, followed in 2022. Vega-C suffered a failure in its second flight at the end of 2022, and returned to flight later (check the details). Small rockets are a crowded market, and Vega competes with many new commercial launchers.

Russian Rockets at Kourou

For about a decade ESA and Arianespace also launched Russian Soyuz rockets from Kourou, filling the middle of the range between Vega and Ariane. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia withdrew its support for the Soyuz launches at Kourou, and the arrangement ended. The effect was larger than a single loss, because Europe lost a rocket just as the Ariane 5 was approaching retirement and the new Ariane 6 was still delayed.

Ariane 6 and a Gap

Ariane 6 was designed as a cheaper successor to Ariane 5, flexible enough to fly with two or four boosters. It was delayed several times, and it first flew in July 2024 (check). While Ariane 5 was gone and Ariane 6 was not ready, Europe had no operational heavy launcher of its own for a period, and some European missions and satellites had to fly on American rockets. The Euclid space telescope and some navigation satellites are examples reported as launched on SpaceX Falcon 9 in this period (check each). To many observers this gap was a serious blow to the policy of independent access.

A New Competitor

The commercial launch market changed in the 2010s when American companies, above all SpaceX, began reusing the first stages of their rockets and cutting prices. European rockets had been built to be thrown away after use, and the cost difference became a political issue. This is one of the strongest challenges to the fair-return and shared-industry model from Chapter 3, and Chapter 9 returns to it.

Exercises

Next chapter: Exploring the Solar System, which follows ESA's probes to comets, Mars and Titan, and the Beagle 2 story.