Mission accomplished for Ariane 64, Europe's most powerful rocket with Italian thrusters: 32 Amazon satellites launched
The launch from French Guiana marks a step forward for Europe in space, with a new version of the rocket and a satellite constellation for the global internet.
Key points
The launch took place at 17:45 Italy time from the Kourou base in French Guiana, with 32 satellites Leo, Amazon's constellation created to offer internet services in competition with Starlink by Elon Musk and aiming to be operational within the year.
The launch lasted 1 hour and 54 minutes with the satellites being released into orbit at an altitude of approximately 465 kilometres.
Sanctioning the success of the mission was a long round of applause in the Jupiter control room at the Guyanese Space Centre when the confirmation came that the last satellite had been released into orbit. I
The launch got underway with the ignition of the engines, which in a few seconds lifted the rocket,62 metres high, drawing a trail of white smoke in the almost completely blue sky of the early afternoon in Kourou. What propelled the rocket in the critical first take-off phase were the boosters, Avio's small side rockets, which for the first time went from 2 to 4.
It is these that provide significant thrust, so much so that in this new version the European rocket, built by Arianespace, has gone from its initial low earth orbit capacity of 10.3 tonnes to a doubled capacity of around 20 tonnes.
