Aiming for the stars with Europe’s launch vehicles

In fact, no single authority or group was entirely responsible or in control of Europa, something France was determined to avoid with Ariane.

Aerospatiale took the industrial architect role for Ariane and became a key contractor along with other Airbus predecessor companies: MBB, ERNO and Dornier in Germany; CASA in Spain; and Matra in France.

The first Ariane 1 was launched in 1979 from the Guiana Space Centre, providing the framework for a family of vehicles that were to become a benchmark in the world’s launch service industry.

To ensure its commercial viability, Europe formed an organisation to market the well-entrenched U.S. launcher. As a result, Arianespace was created in 1980, with offices set up next to the launcher division of France’s CNES space agency – which has the Ariane programme’s lead technical and managerial responsibility.

Europe’s Ariane product line evolved during the 1980s with the more powerful Ariane 2 and Ariane 3 versions – ultimately leading to the Ariane 4 family, consisting of six versions using a core vehicle with a mix of solid and liquid boosters that offered payload lift performance of more than 4,000 kg. into geostationary transfer orbit.

In parallel to the founding Ariane family’s development, Europe began looking in the 1970s at more powerful launchers capable of carrying the heavy telecommunications satellites envisioned for the 1990s – as well as a vehicle capable of orbiting Europe’s planned Hermes spaceplane. Although the dream of developing Hermes (a programme led by Airbus predecessor company Aerospatiale) ended because of both financial constraints and political pressures, Europe correctly anticipated the emergence of large geostationary communications relay satellites.

Full-scale studies of the future heavy-lift launcher were authorised in January 1985 by ministers representing member countries of the European Space Agency (ESA), and the development go-ahead for this new launcher – to be named Ariane 5 – came at a ministerial-level meeting of the European Space Agency nations in November 1987. These decisions showed the foresight of European industry: at the time of Ariane 5’s approval in 1987, the cornerstone Ariane 1-3 launcher versions had performed only 19 flights, of which four were failures…and the improved Ariane 4’s initial liftoff was still six months away.

Among the overriding goals for Ariane 5 were reduced costs and high reliability. The manufacture of an Ariane 5 was set at approximately 50,000 hours, compared to some 100,000 hours for an Ariane 4. Contributing to the cost reduction was the reduction in systems and components, which also contributed to a high reliability. While an Ariane 4 had up to 10 solid-propellent and liquid-fuelled motors, the increased-lift Ariane 5 is powered by four motors with significantly higher thrust.

Aerospatiale was given the Ariane 5’s industry lead-contractor role as the “industrial architect” – a responsibility transferred to Airbus when the industrial group was established, and subsequently shifted to Airbus Safran Launchers (the joint venture created in January 2015 to reorganise the European launchers sector). In 2017, Airbus Safran Launchers was renamed ArianeGroup.

Ariane 5 has lived up to its promise: as of early 2019, the heavy-lift vehicle had been launched more than 100 times from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, orbiting telecommunications satellites, Earth observation and climate-monitoring spacecraft, deep-space probes and other passenger types. Its payload lift capability has evolved from the initial 6,900 kg. in geostationary transfer orbit to an enhanced performance of 10,000 kg., along with a capacity of 20 tonnes into low Earth orbit.