Yesterday, Ariana 6 successfully traveled into space for the first time. This test flight brought great joy to both European Space Agency (ESA) as well as in the EU member states that invested in it, including Spain. After the withdrawal of Roscosmos’ Soyuz capsules in protest at sanctions imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine, Europe was left without any launch system to launch astronauts, satellites and other instruments into space. This even led to the cancellation of important missions such as ExoMars. However, thanks to the success of Ariane 6, the European agency has completed the approval process. independence conduct your own space race.
That’s why Ariane 6 is so important. The project engineers are very happy because everything went well in the project. First try launcher. This is not something ordinary. Just look at all the problems Boeing’s Starliner has faced in recent years.
This is all great news, but there is still a lot of work to do. The first flight was a two-part affair. The first thing Ariane 6 did was leave European Spaceport Kourouin French Guiana, was supposed to release a group of satellites and put them into orbit 600 kilometers from Earth. Everything went well. However, the second part had some errors that will have to be worked out for the flight scheduled for December.
Ariane 6’s First Successes
Ariane 6’s first flight gets a name BA262. It left the Guiana spaceport at 21:00 Spanish Peninsula time.
A little over an hour later, he released the satellites. Once that was done, the second phase began, testing the microgravity systems. Most of these tests went well, but there was one small problem. Auxiliary power unit (APU) from the top the rocket lit up a second time, but immediately went out. This is according to what they say from Efe Agencymade Vinci engine, With the ability to be restarted up to four times (three for this first flight), it could not be turned on again a third time.
All this made it impossible to properly separate the capsules and controlled deorbit launcher. It’s not a complete success, but it’s a big step forward.
The second test flight is expected to take place in December, by which time these problems should be resolved.
The role of Spain
Spain played a very important role in the development of Ariane 6. The Ministry of Science, through the new Spanish Space Agency invested 228 million euros in the rocket. In addition, many of the instruments and satellites on board were of Spanish manufacture.
For example, the CubeSat satellite. 3Cat-4designed to measure weather events from space, was built by students Polytechnic University of CataloniaBut neither this nor the other satellites could be released properly without RAMI dispenserprepared by Galician company UARX Space.
Europe has taken a giant step towards its spatial independence. There is still work to do, but there is every reason to rejoice over the first flight of Ariane 6.
Source: Hiper Textual
