"Ariane 6" Vehicle Embarks on Successful Journey into Space

The "Ariane 6" vehicle successfully placed small satellites into orbit on Tuesday, one hour and six minutes after its launch from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, marking the successful first flight of the European rocket. Joseph Aschbacher, the Director General of the European Space Agency, commented on the success of the mission: "This is a historic day for the European Space Agency and for Europe." With this success, Europe regains its independence in space travel. However, to consider this success complete, one must wait for the upper stage of the vehicle to return from the atmosphere and land in the Pacific Ocean, which is expected to happen approximately three hours after the launch. The success of this 56-meter tall giant rocket's mission represents Europe's return to the space sector, according to Tony Tulkner-Nielsen, the head of space transportation at the European Space Agency. Since the last flight of the Ariane 5 vehicle a year ago, Europeans have been unable to place a satellite into orbit independently: since the invasion of Ukraine, they no longer have access to Russian Soyuz rockets, and the Vega-C rocket has been retired since the end of 2022 due to an incident. On its maiden flight, the "Ariane 6" carried 11 small university satellites, equipment for various experiments, as well as two capsules for re-entry into the atmosphere.