European rocket launch company Arianespace says it has a four-year backlog but its clients are not yet ready with their cargoes. The first mission for its Ariane 6 rocket will not be ready until July. Arianespace managed its first commercial launch on March 6th which went smoothly. Arianespace’s newly-appointed Chief Executive David Cavaillolès told delegates […]

Arianespace has postponed the launch of its Ariane 6 rocket which was origially planned to fly on February 26th. Arianespace has not given a fresh date for the debut commercial mission which will eventually carry a French science craft (CSO-3) into a sun-synchronus orbit. “Due to further operations needed on a ground means, the launch […]

During last week’s 17th European Space Conference, launch company Arianespace announced it had won three new contracts. Arianespace was awarded contracts to launch PLATO, Sentinel-1D, and a pair of second-generation Galileo positioning satellites. The two Galileo craft will share a launcher. Arianespace now has a backlog of 30 Ariane 6 launches. Eighteen of them are […]

Arianespace will fly its next rocket mission (VA263) with Ariane 6 on February 26th. Its cargo will be a French military satellite (the CSO-3 high-res optical satellite). It is Ariane 6’s first commercial, fee-paying flight and follows on from the test debut flight on July 9th 2024. The current plan is for launch to take […]

Stéphane Israël, CEO of Arianespace since 2013 and member of the Executive Committee of ArianeGroup since 2017, will leave the Group on December 31st “to pursue a new career opportunity in January 2025” according to a statement from the rocket company. He is being replaced by David Cavaillolès who will join the Group in January […]

July 9th is the scheduled launch date for the much-delayed test flight European Space Agency’s (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket. However, last week saw Europe’s important weather organisation cancel its launch contract on an Ariane 6 flight. Worse, perhaps, the cancellation was made in favour of Arianespace’s arch-rival SpaceX. Eumetsat, in a June 28th statement, said […]

Europe already has one rival to its giant Ariane rocket in the form of the Vega mid-sized launcher. However, Vega is itself subject to delays caused by a failure at the end of 2022 and in any case is only good for lower weight or orbital tasks. Stephane Israel, chief executive of Arianespace, questioned the […]

The first full test launch for the all-new Ariane 6 rocket will happen between June 15th and July 31st this year. The European Space Agency (ESA) issued a joint report from the Launcher Task Force on progress to date and its schedule for the future as it gears up to the summer test launch for […]

Space Foundation has issued its Space Report for Q4 2023 revealing that global launch activity reached new highs for the third year in a row, with 223 launch attempts and 212 successful launches. Commercial launch activity increased 50 per cent from 2022. The US saw a 33 per cent increase in launch attempts, with China, […]

The launch of Europe’s scientific and commercial satellites has in general been handled by rockets from Arianespace. Currently, the company’s latest rocket, Ariane 6, is very late with its readiness and its first (non-test) flight will not happen – at best – until next winter. The delay has prompted a very direct criticism by the […]