Ariane 5
Sign in to saveretired rocket series of the Ariane family
Key facts
- Function
- Heavy-lift launch vehicle
- Manufacturer
- ArianeGroup
- Country of origin
- European multi-national
- Cost per launch
- € 150–200 million (2016)
- Height
- 46–52 m (151–171 ft)
- Diameter
- 5.4 m (18 ft)
- Mass
- 777,000 kg (1,713,000 lb)
- Altitude
- 260 km (160 mi) (circular)
- Orbital inclination
- 51.6°
- Family
- Ariane
- Based on
- Ariane 4
- Derivative work
- Ariane 6
- Comparable
- Atlas V Delta IV Heavy Falcon 9 Block 5 H-IIB Long March 5 LVM3 Proton-M
- Status
- Retired
- Launch sites
- Guiana Space Centre , ELA-3
- Total launches
- 117 ( G: 16, G+: 3, GS: 6, ES: 8, ECA: 72, ECA+: 12)
- Success es
- 112 ( G: 13, G+: 3, GS: 6, ES: 8, ECA: 70, ECA+: 12)
- Failure
- 2 ( G: 1, ECA: 1)
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
Ariane 5 ( French: [aʁjan sɛ̃k]) is a retired European heavy-lift space launch vehicle operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was launched from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana. It was used to deliver payloads into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), low Earth orbit (LEO) or further into space. The launch vehicle had a streak of 82 consecutive successful launches between 9 April 2003 and 12 December 2017. In development since 2014, Ariane 6, a direct successor system was first launched in 2024.
The system was designed as an expendable launch vehicle by the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), the French government's space agency, in cooperation with various European partners. Despite not being a direct derivative of its predecessor launch vehicle program, it was classified as part of the Ariane rocket family. Aérospatiale, and later ArianeGroup, was the prime contractor for the manufacturing of the vehicles, leading a multi-country consortium of other European contractors. Ariane 5 was originally intended to launch the Hermes spacecraft, and thus it was rated for human space launches.