The Ariane 6 rocket masterminded by the European Space Agency (ESA) has finally achieved a successful lift off from its launchpad at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Europe’s newest rocket was originally scheduled to launch three days earlier, on March 3, 2025, but unspecified issues on the ground forced a last-minute postponement.
Eventually Flight VA263 was able to launch into orbit at 13:24 local time, carrying a CSO-3 military satellite for the French Air and Space Force’s Space Command.
All of the rocket’s stages were completed successfully and the satellite placed on a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of around 800 km.
The fact that the first commercial mission of Europe’s most advanced space launcher carried a military satellite with sophisticated observation and intelligence gathering capabilities has taken on a special significance, as it coincided with the announcement that the new Trump administration will no longer share intelligence collected by US satellites with Ukraine.
Underscoring this point, both ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher and numerous industry and media commentators highlighted the importance for Europe to have access to autonomous space capabilities.
The European Space Agency also highlighted that, after successfully putting the French satellite into orbit, the Ariane 6’s upper stage went into a reentry orbit and burned up safely upon its return to the Earth’s atmosphere, as programmed. In doing so, the accumulation of space debris was averted.
