The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Thursday local time that it would launch two science missions using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket after delays on its own Ariane 6 rocket and the cancellation of flights on Russia’s Soyuz launcher. The agency’s space telescope, Euclid, had been slated to launch on a Soyuz rocket next year, but in February Russia pulled out in response to European sanctions over Moscow’s military action against Ukraine.
Aiming to better understand the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, Euclid will now launch into space on a Falcon 9 rocket from billionaire Elon Musk’s American company SpaceX.
ESA Administrator Josef Aschbacher said his agency’s Hera mission, which will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket in late 2024, will detect the asteroid that NASA successfully missed in September by crashing the DART spacecraft into the Didymos asteroid.
Aschbacher told a news conference on Thursday that the use of other launchers was a “temporary measure” for ESA, not least because of the Soyuz exit but also because of the Ariane 6 delay.
The announcement comes a day after ESA revealed that the first flight of the Ariane 6 has been delayed again and will now launch in the last quarter of next year.
It is reported that the Ariane 6 was originally scheduled to fly in 2020, after being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and development difficulties.
The new launch system will replace the Ariane 5, which is no longer in production.
Ariane 6 hopes to eventually take over the Soyuz mission and, once operational, will likely compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, especially in the field of sending small satellites into the sky.
In the next decade, some 18,500 satellites weighing less than 500 kilograms are expected to be launched into space, according to consulting firm Euroconsult.
In recent days, a test model of the Ariane 6 was successfully assembled on the launch pad at the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
While the model won’t fly, it can test engines, communications, software and other long-awaited launch aspects.
