Europe's Ariane 6 commercial rocket launch today boosts Europe's access to space, cuts SpaceX reliance

EUROPE moves to cut SpaceX reliance with first commercial launch of Ariane 6 today carrying French military observation satellite. The launch bolsters Europe's access to space. See video and two reports below.

Report from Reuters online

By Tim Hepher; Editing by Toby Chopra

Published 6 March 2025 - full copy:

Europe's Ariane 6 stages first commercial launch

(Reuters) - Europe's newest uncrewed heavy launcher blasted off on a delayed mission to carry a French military observation satellite towards orbit on Thursday in its first commercially operational launch.

The Ariane 6 rocket lifted from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 1:24 p.m. local time (1624 GMT), live webcast images showed, following two earlier postponements.

View original: 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/europes-ariane-6-stages-first-163328647.html

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Report from The Next Web online

Published 6 March 2025 - excerpt:

Europe moves to cut SpaceX reliance with Ariane 6 launch today

The first commercial launch of Ariane 6 bolsters Europe's access to space

Caption: "New launch date for CSO-3. The investigations carried out on the ground means interfacing with the launcher, following the launch attempt on March 3, now enable Arianespace to target a launch on March 6, 2025, at 1:24 p.m. local time in Kourou, French Guiana (4:24 p.m. UTC, 5:24 p.m. CET). Ariane 6 and its passenger, the CSO-3 satellite, are in stable and safe conditions."

Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Europe has been unable to access Soyuz rockets. Meanwhile, the retirement of the Ariane 5 in 2023 and delays to the new Vega-C small-launch vehicle left the continent without independent access to space. Europe was forced to rely on Elon Musk’s SpaceX for over a year. 

Read more: https://thenextweb.com/news/europe-to-cut-spacex-reliance-with-ariane-6-launch

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The sheer beauty of our Universe: amazing images from James Webb telescope, two years after launch

HERE is a reminder of the beauty of our Universe. These wondrous pictures, a great feat by mankind, seem to give an ethereal glimpse into the after life.

 

From BBC News  Science

By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent 

Dated Monday, 1 January 2024

Amazing images from James Webb telescope, two years after launch

ORION NEBULA

The famous star forming region can just about be seen by the naked eye as a smudge on the sky. It would take a spaceship travelling at light-speed a little over four years to traverse this Webb scene.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched to orbit just two years ago, but already it's starting to redefine our view of the early Universe.

Marvel at the extraordinary collection of James Webb pictures on this page - from the most distant reaches of the Universe to the nearby familiar objects in our own Solar System.

It's amazing to think that imaging isn't actually the telescope's majority workload.

More than 70% of its time is spent doing spectroscopy. That's sampling the light from objects and slicing it up into its "rainbow" colours. It's how you retrieve key information about the chemistry, temperature, density and velocity of the targets under study.

"You could think of Webb as a giant spectrograph that takes the occasional nice picture," joked Dr Smith.

Contributors

Written by Jonathan Amos with additional reporting by Rebecca Morelle, Alison Francis and Tony Jolliffe. Production by Mike Hills and Dominic Bailey, design by Kate Gaynor and development by Becky Rush. Images: NASA/ESA/CSA.

Full story and images: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-611525eb-3a0c-4a68-bf54-485df138b6f6

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