Arianespace <\/b>signed three launch agreements for the Ariane 6 rocket between the European Commission<\/b>, the European Space Agency<\/b> (ESA), EUMETSAT<\/b> and the EU Agency for the Space Programme<\/b> (EUSPA), the company announced this week. <\/p>\n
ESA will launch the Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) satellite aboard the Ariane 6 rocket at the end of 2026, targeting the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, Arianespace announced Jan. 29. PLATO is designed to detect and characterize Earth-like exoplanets using an array of 26 cameras.<\/p>\n
The European Commission and ESA will launch Sentinel-1D with the two-booster version of Ariane 6 in the second half of 2025. As a part of the Copernicus Earth observation system, the satellite will carry radar technology to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of the Earth\u2019s surface, delivering data essential to monitoring. <\/p>\n
EUMETSAT\u2019s Metop-SG-A1 satellite is moving up in the schedule to launch in August 2025 on Ariane 6\u2019s second commercial flight (VA264). Metop-SG-A1 will provide weather and climate observation from polar orbit. The satellite will also carry the Sentinel-5 payload, to provide high-resolution data on various atmospheric parameters, supporting global air quality monitoring and climate application.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy reaffirming their trust towards Europe\u2019s new heavy-lift Ariane 6 launcher, our European partners strengthen Europe\u2019s space industry and its sovereignty. We are extremely proud to deliver what we are committed to providing: Europe\u2019s autonomous access to space,\u201d said Arianespace\u2019s CEO David Cavaillol\u00e8s.<\/p>\n
The European Commission and the EUSPA also agreed to the launch of the first two second-generation satellites of the Galileo navigation constellation on Ariane 6. This contract represents the fourth mission for Ariane 6 benefiting the Galileo constellation.<\/p>\n
EUSPA\u2019s executive director, Rodrigo da Costa said: \u201cThis launch contract is a key milestone for Galileo\u2019s second generation, enhancing precision and reliability for users worldwide. EUSPA is proud to support the European Union\u2019s space autonomy and deliver innovative services to citizens globally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arianespace announced these launch agreements during the 17th European Space Conference. <\/p>\n
The Ariane 6 made its debut launch in July 2024, successfully deploying all satellites onboard. ArianeGroup is the main contractor that designed the Ariane 6 rocket.<\/p>\n
This story was updated after publication to include the PLATO contract.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arianespace signed three launch agreements for the Ariane 6 rocket between the European Commission, the European Space Agency (ESA), EUMETSAT and the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), the company announced this week. ESA will launch the Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) satellite aboard the Ariane 6 rocket at the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}