How Europe's biggest rocket came to be: Ariane 6 montage

How Europe’s biggest rocket came to be: Arianne 6 montage

The first half of 2024 saw hundreds of people across Europe building, cajoling, shipping, lowering, integrating, securing and protecting the precious pieces and parts that came together to create Ariane 6 – Europe’s new heavy-lift rocket.

Huge engines, boosters and outer shells met tiny screws, electrical boards and masses of supercooled fuel. All this came together at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, for the spectacular first launch of Ariane 6 on 9 July 2024, restoring Europe’s access to space.

Get a glimpse at the teamwork, skill and care that went into this moment over many months, in this montage of Ariane 6 images, videos and timelapse photography spanning 30 January to 9 July 2024.

Ariane 6 launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 16:00 local time (20:00 BST, 21:00 CEST). Designed to provide more launch power with higher flexibility and at a lower cost than its predecessors. The launcher’s configuration – with an upgraded main stage, a choice of either two or four powerful boosters and a new restartable upper stage – will provide Europe with greater efficiency and a wider range of launch services, including for the launch of multiple payloads into different orbits on a single flight.

CREDIT
S. Corvaja-ESA/M. Pedoussaut, L. Bourgeon-ZetapressThis video includes third party content. It shall not be modified, and parts of the video (e.g. footage, animations, music etc.) shall not be used in other productions without explicit authorisation by ESA.