Europe’s towering Ariane 6 rocket is gaining momentum in the heavy-lift launch market.<\/p>\n
The first pair of Galileo navigation satellites to launch on an Ariane 6<\/a> lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport<\/a> in Kourou, French Guiana on Wednesday (Dec. 17) at 12:01 a.m. EST (0501 GMT; 2:01 a.m. local time in Kourou).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Galileo Launch 14 (L14) is sending the spacecraft pair to join 26 other active satellites<\/a> in the constellation, which is Europe’s equivalent to the Global Positioning System<\/a> (GPS) used by the United States<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n The L14 satellites are scheduled to deploy about 3 hours and 20 minutes after liftoff and will then spend three days unfolding their solar arrays and running checks on critical systems. The two satellites<\/a> will then enter a four-month drift and positioning phase before settling into their final orbital position to begin operation.<\/p>\n The Galileo constellation circles Earth<\/a> at an altitude of 14,429 miles (23,222 kilometers). To date, most of the 1,610-pound (730 kilograms) spacecraft have been launched aboard Europe’s Ariane 5, which retired in 2023<\/a>, or the Russian-built Soyuz<\/a> rocket, an arrangement that Europe ended following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n Europe tapped SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to fly Galileo satellites<\/a> after the invasion, but now that Ariane 6 is operational, the continent can loft those missions without depending on outside launch providers.<\/p>\n