![\"Arianespace](\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/arian_c_638687127912860706.png\")
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Arianespace has signed a launch contract with Exotrail, an end-to-end space mobility operator, for the first GEO mission of its spacevan vehicle. This vehicle will be an auxiliary passenger on board the heavy-lift Ariane 64, a version of the Ariane 6 launcher with four solid boosters, which will be launched from Europe\u2019s Spaceport, in French Guiana, in the second half of 2026. <\/p>\n
The spacevan, which will be placed in a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO), is a servicing satellite notably designed to transport and deploy other satellites (as an Orbital Transfer Vehicle \u2013 OTV) or to host payloads in space. By orbiting the vehicle as an auxiliary payload, Ariane 6 demonstrates its capacity to accomplish complex missions for a variety of customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaunching Exotrail\u2019s spacevan highlights Ariane 6\u2019s capability to meet our customers\u2019 specific expectations and needs, bringing together unrivaled flexibility, versatility, and tailored services\u201d, said St\u00e9phane Isra\u00ebl, CEO of Arianespace<\/strong>. \u201cAs an auxiliary payload on a flight scheduled for the second half of 2026, the spacevan will benefit from Ariane 6\u2019s performance and capacity to reach the geostationary transfer orbit. Through this launch, Arianespace is also pleased to contribute to the development of space logistics and in-space mobility services, a very promising emerging market for the future. We thank Exotrail, CNES, and France 2030 for their trust.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWith this mission, we aim at opening new possibilities for the growing demand of smaller birds needing to reach the geostationary arc\u201d, added Jean-Luc Maria, CEO of <\/strong>Exotrail<\/strong>. \u201cFor this 4th spacevan mission, Ariane 6 is the perfect match. The partnership between the European heavy launcher and our servicing satellite addresses one of the ambitions tackled by France 2030, which is extending the European sovereignty of access to space, up to the GEO arc.\u201d<\/p>\n Ariane 6\u2019s successful inaugural launch took place on July 9th, 2024. Ariane 6 is designed to launch a variety of customer mission profiles, including LEO constellations, GEO telecom and broadcast satellites, MEO Galileo navigation payloads, and other European institutional secure communication and science missions.<\/p>\n Europe\u2019s new heavy-lift rocket has been designed from the outset to be scalable and able to integrate, during its life and on a regular basis, new technologies. Ariane 6\u2019s incremental development is intended to continuously improve the performance of the launch solutions offered by Arianespace and always better fulfill the needs of both institutional and commercial customers. Ariane 6 is a European Space Agency (ESA) program for which ESA is the overall procuring entity and launch system architect. As a lead contractor and design authority for the launcher, ArianeGroup is responsible for development and production together with its industrial partners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arianespace has signed a launch contract with Exotrail, an end-to-end space mobility operator, for the first GEO mission of its spacevan vehicle. This vehicle will be an auxiliary passenger on board the heavy-lift Ariane 64, a version of the Ariane 6 launcher with four solid boosters, which will be launched from Europe\u2019s Spaceport, in French […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[26,25,38,20],"class_list":["post-6284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ground","tag-launch","tag-leo","tag-satellite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284"}],"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=6284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}