French Guiana - ESA: Getting the New European Ariane 6 Space Vehicle launch pad ready by July 2020

The New ESA Ariane 6

When Euronews visited, around 500 people were active on the site from six in the morning until ten at night, with attention focused on two key elements of the pad – firstly the huge flame trench which will take the hot gases away from the rocket on launch, and the new building in which the Ariane 6 will be built.

Every element of the new launcher has been built with efficiency and savings in mind, as Europe’s space sector seeks to halve the cost of launching an Ariane 6 compared to today’s heavyweight Ariane 5.

One of the key innovations is that the Ariane 6 will be built horizontally, like the Americans and Russians already do, rather than vertically. This allows for big economies in terms of air conditioning costs and the need for special safety equipment for staff working on high-level platforms.

Didier Coulon, who manages the site for the European Space Agency, explains the steps a rocket will go through: “Once we’ve assembled the launcher, it will be put on a transporter, and we send it to the launch zone, and there it’s raised up vertically, we then bring along the boosters, and at that moment we carry our a general check of the launcher, and that gives the green light to bring along the upper composite with the satellite inside. Once we’ve done that we pull back the 90 metre high mobile portico and we go ahead with the launch.“

Read more: Race to build Ariane 6 rocket launch pad | Euronews