‘Ariane 6 is a launcher for European sovereignty’ • FRANCE 24 English

‘Ariane 6 is a launcher for European sovereignty’ • FRANCE 24 English

Now, Europe’s heavy lift launch rocket Aran 6 had a successful takeoff on its second commercial flight on Tuesday night. The rocket launched at just after 9:30 p.m. local time at the European Spaceport in Kuru in French Guyana. Aran 6 will put into orbit at 6 800 kilometers altitude. Met op SGA1, Europe’s latest generation weather satellite. The satellite is expected to improve weather forecasts and provide a deeper understanding of climate change. Brian Quinn has the details. Into the night sky above French Guyana, the Arion 6 rocket lifts off on its second commercial mission. A successful launch crucial for Europe’s space program as it blasts into the future. On board, the newest generation of European meteorological satellites, a system with enhanced sensors that will orbit the Earth longitudinally, crossing the same latitude at the same time of day for each pass, thus allowing scientists to better monitor the Earth’s changing climate and better predict extreme weather events. Not only we have a global warming worldwide, but Europe is warming up twice faster than any region in the world. So we have to understand this process and it’s a it’s the world organization about weather is working together but the leading force in terms of science and means it’s Europe. The Arion 6 is itself the new generation of European space transport a heavy lift rocket whose full power setup is capable of taking payloads of over 21 12 tons into low Earth orbit. It’s aimed at securing the block’s space transport sovereignty in a sector dominated by the US and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. And while Arion 6 has had just two launches this year, compared to more than 90 for SpaceX, the European rocket’s order log is filling up. 32 missions are currently planned. Half of them booked by Kyper, a satellite internet service that billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is building to compete with Musk’s Starlink. Arion 6 is aiming for 10 launches per year by 2027, more than twice the pace of its predecessor, Arion 5. And for more on the launch of Aran 6, I can welcome Olivia Songi, who is editor-inchief of space news at the CIA debas in Tulus. H good morning Olivier and thank you for joining us. Um this was a fairly successful launch for Arian Ciss by the looks of it. Yes, a very successful launch and the third launch and the second commercial launch. So, Aranis is ramping up and um in what way might Arian cease be considered to be in competition with SpaceX and other commercial satellite companies. We’ve heard that the order log has been ramped up for the European uh the rocket and um so will will it be providing serious competition? Well, first and foremost, IN6 is a launcher for European sovereignty. So there’s no match for that. I mean Europe wants to launch its satellite with its own launcher. I mean it’s an indep it’s to be independent even though uh we could ask friendly countries to do it for us we prefer to do it by ourselves especially for sensitive satellite for example the previous launch was a military launch it was a robot sensing military satellite and we don’t want to give this satellite to other countries um so perhaps Aran 6 is part of a quest for greater security independence on Europe’s part and do Do you think that that’s a a response to recent geopolitical uh movings elsewhere in the world? Well, when IR6 was decided, geopolitical world was a bit more stable. But I would say okay, now we have 6 and it’s a good thing to have it. But in 6 also can have a commercial role. As you said previously, IN6 will launch Cuper satellites, American satellites. So there are customers who trust Ian Espass and Ian 5 has shown that Europe can do very fine commercial launch services. So Ion 6 will continue this tradition I would say. Now there is a collaboration with the United States involved here. Um but is there a possibility that that might be threatened by the Trump administration’s aggressive stance towards science and particularly climate science? Well about that it’s true that Europe is perhaps uh European space agency and European Union especially with the copernicus program which is a a series of satellite for climate change and weather and remote sensing of earth Europe is one of the leading is leading the environmental satellite so we are I would say we are best than United States for that and it’s a good thing because we can’t wait for the Trump administration to assess this uh they are shutting down satellites that are observing earth. So luckily for us luckily for the science the climate sense there is Europe and this is the third launch of Aran 6 the second commercial one the the previous one in March this year was um sent a military satellite into orbit. Europe is investing 20 billion euros in the program. Is this money well spent? Yes, it is money well spent because uh in fact if we shut down all the satellites today there will be no TV, no GPS, no telecommunication and even no internet in some part of the world. So we rely on satellites and satellites needs launcher and we need space technology. You know you can’t build a rocket without engineers, without industry etc. We need that money but it is money well spent because we are in a technological world and part of this technological world needs space. Thank you very much for that Olivia Suni editor and chief of space news at the site debas in Tulus.

The Ariane 6 rocket on Wednesday blasted off carrying Europe’s next generation satellite for warning against extreme weather events. As many European countries simmer in a deadly heatwave, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) said its MetOp-SGA1 satellite will give “earlier warnings to help protect lives and property from extreme weather”. Oliver Farry welcomes Olivier Sanguy, Editor-in-Chief of Space News, joins us from Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse, France.It’s a new kind of satellite
#Ariane6 #Satellite

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