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51-531: The original LE-7 was an expendable , high efficiency, medium-sized motor with sufficient thrust for use on the H-II. The fuel turbopump had an issue using the originally designed inducer (a propeller-like axial pump used to raise the inlet pressure of the propellant ahead of the main turbopumps to prevent cavitation ) where the inducer would itself begin to cavitate and cause an imbalance resulting in excessive vibration . A comprehensive post-flight analysis of

102-458: A ELV may still have a compelling use case over a reusable vehicle. ELVs are simpler in design than reusable launch systems and therefore may have a lower production cost. Furthermore, an ELV can use its entire fuel supply to accelerate its payload, offering greater payloads. ELVs are proven technology in widespread use for many decades. Arianespace SA is a French company founded in March 1980 as

153-522: A core diameter of 1.25 m, with two liquid propellant stages, a single thrust chambered first stage and a two-thrust chambered, step-throttled second stage, the SLV has a lift off mass exceeding 26 tons. The first stage consists of a lengthened up-rated Shahab-3C . According to the technical documentation presented in the annual meeting of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs , it is

204-644: A joint venture between Airbus and Safran . European space launches are carried out as a collaborative effort between private companies and government agencies. The role of Arianespace is to market Ariane 6 launch services, prepare missions, and manage customer relations. At the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana , the company oversees the team responsible for integrating and preparing launch vehicles. The rockets themselves are designed and manufactured by other companies: ArianeGroup for

255-609: A launch system tailored for missions to polar and Sun-synchronous orbits. During 2002, the ESA announced the Arianespace Soyuz programme in cooperation with Russia ; a launch site for Soyuz was constructed as the Guiana Space Centre , while the Soyuz launch vehicle was modified for use at the site. On 4 February 2005, both funding and final approval for the initiative were granted. Arianespace had offered launch services on

306-449: A major customer of Arianespace, stated that: "Each year that passes will see SpaceX advance, gain market share and further reduce its costs through economies of scale ." By September 2014, Arianespace had reportedly to sign four additional contracts for lower slots on an Ariane 5 SYLDA dispenser for satellites that otherwise could be flown on a SpaceX launch vehicle; this was claimed to have been allowed via cost reductions; it had signed

357-515: A one-year contract with the ESA to study and prepare for a mission to the Moon to mine regolith . In 2020, Arianespace suspended operations for nearly two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Operations were suspended on 18 March and are, as of 29 April, expected to resume on 11 May. The return to operations will observe a number of new health and safety guidelines including social distancing in

408-473: A total of 11 contracts by that point, while two additional ones that were under advanced negotiations. At the time, Arianespace has a backlog of launches worth €4.5 billion with 38 satellites to be launched on Ariane 5 , 7 on Soyuz and 9 on Vega , claiming 60% of the global satellite launch market. However, since 2017, Arianespace's market share has been passed by SpaceX in commercial launches. Currently, Arianespace operates three launch vehicles: Since

459-462: A two-stage rocket with all liquid propellant engines. The first stage is capable of carrying the payload to the maximum altitude of 68 kilometres. The Israel Space Agency is one of only seven countries that both build their own satellites and launch their own launchers. The Shavit is a space launch vehicle capable of sending payload into low Earth orbit . The Shavit launcher has been used to send every Ofeq satellite to date. The development of

510-458: Is a launch vehicle that can be launched only once, after which its components are either destroyed during reentry or discarded in space. ELVs typically consist of several rocket stages that are discarded sequentially as their fuel is exhausted and the vehicle gains altitude and speed. As of 2024, fewer and fewer satellites and human spacecraft are launched on ELVs in favor of reusable launch vehicles . However, there are many instances where

561-612: Is a launch vehicle that improved reliability while reducing costs by making significant improvements to the H-II, and the M-V was the world's largest solid-fuel launch vehicle at the time. In November 2003, JAXA's first launch after its inauguration, H-IIA No. 6, failed, but all other H-IIA launches were successful, and as of February 2024, the H-IIA had successfully launched 47 of its 48 launches. JAXA plans to end H-IIA operations with H-IIA Flight No. 50 and retire it by March 2025. JAXA operated

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612-632: Is also an ELV customer, having designed the Titan, Atlas, and Delta families. The Atlas V from the 1994 Evolved ELV (EELV) program remains in active service, operated by the United Launch Alliance . The National Security Space Launch (NSSL) competition has selected two EELV successors, the expendable Vulcan Centaur and partially reusable Falcon 9 , to provide assured access to space. Iran has developed an expendable satellite launch vehicle named Safir SLV . Measuring 22 m in height with

663-528: Is tasked with developing and manufacturing the Ariane 6 carrier rocket. Industrial groups Airbus and Safran pooled their shares along with the French government's CNES stake to form a partnership company holding just under 74% of Arianespace shares, while the remaining 26% is spread across suppliers in nine countries including further Airbus subsidiaries. By 2004, Arianespace reportedly held more than 50% of

714-562: Is to market Ariane 6 launch services, prepare missions, and manage customer relations. At the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana , the company oversees the team responsible for integrating and preparing launch vehicles. The rockets themselves are designed and manufactured by other companies: ArianeGroup for the Ariane 6 and Avio for the Vega. The launch infrastructure at the CSG is owned by

765-403: Is very experienced in development, assembling, testing and operating system for use in space. Arianespace Arianespace SA is a French company founded in March 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider . It operates two launch vehicles : Vega C , a small-lift rocket , and Ariane 6 , a medium -to- heavy-lift rocket. Arianespace is a subsidiary of ArianeGroup ,

816-578: The European Space Agency , while the land itself belongs to and is managed by CNES , the French national space agency. During the 1960s and 1970s, India initiated its own launch vehicle program in alignment with its geopolitical and economic considerations. In the 1960s–1970s, the country India started with a sounding rocket in the 1960s and 1970s and advanced its research to deliver the Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 and

867-813: The H-IIB , an upgraded version of the H-IIA, from September 2009 to May 2020 and successfully launched the H-II Transfer Vehicle six times. This cargo spacecraft was responsible for resupplying the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module on the International Space Station . To be able to launch smaller mission on JAXA developed a new solid-fueled rocket, the Epsilon as a replacement to the retired M-V . The maiden flight successfully happened in 2013. So far,

918-470: The H10+ , was adopted for the Ariane 4, which raised the rocket's overall payload capacity by 110 kg and increased its burn time by 20 seconds. Even prior to the first flight of the Ariane 4 in 1988, development of a successor, designated as the Ariane 5 , had already commenced. In January 1985, the Ariane 5 was officially adopted as an ESA programme, and began an eleven-year development and test program to

969-665: The Redstone missile to the Delta , Atlas , Titan and Saturn rocket families, have been expendable. As its flagship crewed exploration replacement for the partially reusable Space Shuttle , NASA's newest ELV, the Space Launch System flew successfully in November 2022 after delays of more than six years. It is planned to serve in a major role on crewed exploration programs going forward. The United States Air Force

1020-513: The prime contractor and held responsibility for performing the integration of all sections of the vehicle, while French engine manufacturer Société Européenne de Propulsion (SEP) provided the first, second and third stage engines (the third stage engines were produced in partnership with German aerospace manufacturer MBB ). Other major companies involved included the French firms Air Liquide and Matra , Swedish manufacturer Volvo , and German aircraft producer Dornier Flugzeugwerke . Development of

1071-439: The Ariane 6 and Avio for the Vega. The launch infrastructure at the CSG is owned by the European Space Agency , while the land itself belongs to and is managed by CNES , the French national space agency. As of May 2021 , Arianespace had launched more than 850 satellites in 287 missions spanning 41 years. The company's first commercial launch was Spacenet 1 , which took place on 23 May 1984. In addition to its facilities at

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1122-423: The Ariane launcher quickly mounted up; by early 1984, a total of 27 satellites had been booked to use Ariane, which was estimated to be half of the world's market at that time. As a result of the commercial success, after the tenth Ariane mission was flown, the ESA formally transferred responsibility for Ariane over to Arianespace. By early 1986, the Ariane 1, along with its Ariane 2 and Ariane 3 derivates, were

1173-439: The CSG, the company's main offices are in Évry-Courcouronnes , a suburb of Paris . The formation of Arianespace SA is closely associated with the desire of several European nations to pursue joint collaboration in the field of space exploration and the formation of a pan-national organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), to oversee such undertaking during 1973. Prior to the ESA's formation, France had been lobbying for

1224-479: The ESA and CNES; Italy provided 65 per cent of funding while six additional nations contributed the remainder. In May 2004, it was reported that a contract was signed between commercial operator Arianespace and prime contractor ELV to perform vehicle integration at Kourou , French Guiana . On 13 February 2012, the first launch of the Vega took place; it was reported as being an "apparently perfect flight". Since entering commercial service, Arianespace markets Vega as

1275-584: The Shavit began in 1983 and its operational capabilities were proven on three successful launches of the Ofek satellites on September 19, 1988; April 3, 1990; and April 5, 1995. The Shavit launchers allows low-cost and high-reliability launch of micro/mini satellites to a low Earth orbit . The Shavit launcher is developed by Malam factory, one of four factories in the IAI Electronics Group. The factory

1326-409: The combustion chamber/injector assembly underwent a number of small changes, like decreasing the number of injector elements, to reduce machining complexity (and thus cost) and improve reliability. While these changes overall resulted in a drop in maximum specific impulse to 440 seconds (4.3 km/s) (basically making the engine less fuel efficient), the trade off for lower cost and enhanced reliability

1377-518: The development of a new European expendable launch system to serve as a replacement for the Europa rocket. Accordingly, one of the first programmes launched by the ESA was the Ariane heavy launcher. The express purpose of this launcher was to facilitate the delivery of commercial satellites into geosynchronous orbit . France was the largest stakeholder in the Ariane development programme. French aerospace manufacturer Aérospatiale served as

1428-467: The dominant launcher on the world market. The Ariane 2 and Ariane 3 were short-lived platforms while the more extensive Ariane 4 was being developed; it was a considerably larger and more flexible launcher that the earlier members of its family, having been intended from the onset to compete with the upper end of launchers worldwide. In comparison, while the Ariane 1 had a typical weight of 207 tonnes and could launch payloads of up to 1.7 tonnes into orbit;

1479-516: The end of 2025. Arianespace "is the marketing and sales organization for the European space industry and various component suppliers." The primary shareholders of Arianespace are its suppliers , in various European nations. Arianespace had 24 shareholders in 2008, 21 in 2014, and just 17 as of October 2018 . In 2015, Arianespace shareholding was restructured due to the creation of Airbus Safran Launchers (later renamed ArianeGroup), which

1530-418: The first launch in 1996. It lacked the high levels of commonality that the Ariane 4 had with its predecessors, and had been designed not only for launching heavier payloads of up to 5.2 tonnes and at a 20 per cent cost reduction over the Ariane 4, but for a higher margin of safety due to the fact that the Ariane 5 was designed to conduct crewed space launches as well, being intended to transport astronauts using

1581-463: The larger Ariane 4 had a typical weight of 470 tonnes and could orbit payloads of up to 4.2 tonnes. Despite this, the Ariane 4 was actually 15 per cent smaller than the Ariane 3. On 15 June 1988, the first successful launch of the Ariane 4 was conducted. This maiden flight was considered a success, having placed multiple satellites into orbit. For the V50 launch onwards, an improved third stage, known as

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1632-442: The modified Soyuz ST-B to its clients. On 21 October 2011, Arianespace launched the first Soyuz rocket ever from outside former Soviet territory. The payload consisted of two Galileo navigation satellites. Since 2011, Arianespace has ordered a total of 23 Soyuz rockets, enough to cover its needs until 2019 at a pace of three to four launches per year. On 21 January 2019, ArianeGroup and Arianespace announced that it had signed

1683-546: The more advanced Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV), complete with operational supporting infrastructure by the 1990s. Japan launched its first satellite, Ohsumi , in 1970, using ISAS' L-4S rocket. Prior to the merger, ISAS used small Mu rocket family of solid-fueled launch vehicles, while NASDA developed larger liquid-fueled launchers. In the beginning, NASDA used licensed American models. The first model of liquid-fueled launch vehicle developed domestically in Japan

1734-809: The most famous of them being the R-7 , commonly known as the Soyuz rocket that is capable of launching about 7.5 tons into low Earth orbit (LEO). The Proton rocket (or UR-500K) has a lift capacity of over 20 tons to LEO. Smaller rockets include Rokot and other Stations. Several governmental agencies of the United States purchase ELV launches. NASA is a major customer with the Commercial Resupply Services and Commercial Crew Development programs, also launching scientific spacecraft. The vast majority of launch vehicles for its missions, from

1785-441: The pipe routing (which makes the outward appearance of the two models considerably different). To combat the fuel inducer complications described above, the fuel inducer was redesigned for the 7A. The oxidizer inducer was also redesigned, but this was primarily due to poor performance at low inlet pressures as opposed to reliability concerns. The fuel turbopump itself was also the subject of various durability enhancements. Additionally

1836-415: The proposed Hermes space vehicle . Development of the Ariane 5 was not without controversy as some ESA members considered the mature Ariane 4 platform to be more suited for meeting established needs for such launchers; it was reportedly for this reason that Britain chose not to participate in the Ariane 5 programme. For several years, Ariane 4 and Ariane 5 launchers were operated interchangeably; however, it

1887-468: The rocket has flown six times with one launch failure. In January 2017, JAXA attempted and failed to put a miniature satellite into orbit atop one of its SS520 series rockets. A second attempt on 2 February 2018 was successful, putting a four kilogram CubeSat into Earth orbit. The rocket, known as the SS-520-5, is the world's smallest orbital launcher. Roscosmos uses a family of several launch rockets,

1938-488: The third stage was a major focus point for the project - prior to Ariane, only the United States had ever flown a launcher that utilised hydrogen-powered upper stages. Immediately following the successful first test launch of an Ariane 1 on 24 December 1979, the French space agency Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) and the ESA created a new company, Arianespace , for the purpose of promoting, marketing, and managing Ariane operations. According to Arianespace, at

1989-436: The time of its establishment, it was the world's first launch services company. Following a further three test launches, the first commercial launch took place on 10 September 1982, which ended in failure as a result of a turbopump having failed in the third stage. The six remaining flights of the Ariane 1 were successful, with the final flight occurring during February 1986. As a result of these repeated successes, orders for

2040-461: The unsuccessful 8th H-II launch, including a deep ocean retrieval of the wreckage, determined that fatigue due to this vibration was the cause of premature engine failure. The LE-7A is an upgraded model from the LE-7 rocket engine. Basic design is unchanged from the original model. The 7A had additional engineering effort placed on cost cutting, reliability, and performance developments. The renovation

2091-488: The workplace. In 2023, Ariane 5 was retired with the introduction of new Ariane 6 , that conducted its maiden flight on 9 July 2024. In August 2024, the ESA agreed to allow Avio —the prime contractor for the ESA-funded Vega —to directly commercialize Vega C and seek non-governmental customers. Arianespace had handled marketing of Vega launches prior to that time. The transition is anticipated to be complete by

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2142-447: The world market for boosting satellites to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). During the 2010s, the disruptive force represented by the new sector entrant SpaceX forced Arianespace to cut back on its workforce and focus on cost-cutting to decrease costs to remain competitive against the new low-cost entrant in the launch sector. In the midst of pricing pressure from such companies, during November 2013, Arianespace announced that it

2193-410: The world's first commercial launch service provider . It operates two launch vehicles : Vega C , a small-lift rocket , and Ariane 6 , a medium -to- heavy-lift rocket. Arianespace is a subsidiary of ArianeGroup , a joint venture between Airbus and Safran . European space launches are carried out as a collaborative effort between private companies and government agencies. The role of Arianespace

2244-602: Was able to sufficiently replicate and trace the dangerous transient loading and a new one-piece “long” nozzle with full regenerative cooling (as opposed to the original short nozzle with a separate film-cooled extension) was designed to mitigate the problem. Before this new nozzle was ready, some H-IIA's were launched using only the short nozzle. The 7A no longer uses a separate nozzle extension in any configuration. The new H-IIB launch vehicles uses two LE-7A engines in its first stage. Expendable launch system An expendable launch system (or expendable launch vehicle/ELV )

2295-537: Was carried over to its successor, the H-IIA and H-IIB and became the basic configuration of Japan's liquid fuel launch vehicles for 30 years, from 1994 to 2024. In 2003, JAXA was formed by merging Japan's three space agencies to streamline Japan's space program, and JAXA took over operations of the H-IIA liquid-fueled launch vehicle, the M-V solid-fuel launch vehicle, and several observation rockets from each agency. The H-IIA

2346-501: Was considered acceptable. For the new engine model, a nozzle extension was designed that could be added to the base of the new standard “short” nozzle when extra performance was required. But when the engine was fitted with the nozzle extension, the 7A encountered a new problem with unprecedented side-loads and irregular heating on the nozzle strong enough to damage the gimbal actuators and regenerative cooling tubes during startup. Meticulous computational fluid dynamics (CFD) work

2397-587: Was considering requesting additional subsidies from European governments to face competition from SpaceX and unfavorable changes in the Euro-Dollar exchange rate. The company had halved subsidy support by €100m per year since 2002 but the fall in the value of the US Dollar meant Arianespace was losing €60m per year due to currency fluctuations on launch contracts. SpaceX had reportedly begun to take market share from Arianespace, Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen ,

2448-426: Was enacting pricing flexibility for the "lighter satellites" that it carries to Geostationary orbits aboard its Ariane 5. According to Arianespace's managing director: "It's quite clear there's a very significant challenge coming from SpaceX (...) therefore things have to change (...) and the whole European industry is being restructured, consolidated, rationalised and streamlined." During early 2014, Arianespace

2499-498: Was eventually decided to terminate all Ariane 4 operations in favour of concentrating on the newer Ariane 5. During the mid-1990s, French firms Aérospatiale and SEP, along with Italian firm Bombrini-Parodi-Delfino (BPD), held discussions on the development of a proposed Ariane Complementary Launcher (ACL). Simultaneously, Italy championed the concept of a new solid-propellant satellite launcher, referred to as Vega . During March 2003, contracts for Vega's development were signed by

2550-619: Was the H-II , introduced in 1994. NASDA developed the H-II with two goals in mind: to be able to launch satellites using only its own technology, such as the ISAS, and to dramatically improve its launch capability over previous licensed models. To achieve these two goals, a staged combustion cycle was adopted for the first stage engine, the LE-7 . The combination of the liquid hydrogen two-stage combustion cycle first stage engine and solid rocket boosters

2601-421: Was undertaken to mate it with the likewise improved H-IIA launch vehicle, with the common goal being a more reliable, more powerful and flexible, and more cost effective launch system. Specific emphasis was placed on reducing or the amount of required welding by allowing for more machined or cast components, and to simplify as many of the remaining welds as possible. This resulted in a substantial rework of

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