PARIS, Dec 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The first Ariane space rocket lifted off
over the forests of French Guiana 40 years ago, enabling Europe to at last
take its place as an independent player in the international race for space.
Following a number of delays and technical setbacks, Ariane 1 finally left
the launch pad in Kourou at 2:13 pm local time on December 24, 1979.
Its maiden flight was a so-called qualification flight, meaning it was not
carrying any satellite to put into orbit.
But at the launch, and “during the successive ignitions and separations of
different parts of the rocket, there were cries of joy from spectators as the
Ariane rose in the clear sky above Guiana,” AFP’s special correspondent wrote
at the time.
The control room erupted with applause when the then head of France’s CNES
National Centre for Space Studies, Yves Sillard, declared the mission a
success, “without even waiting for the orbiting diagnosis,” the AFP article
stated.
“It was a complete success. It triggered inexpressible joy,” Sillard said
in an interview with AFP four decades after.
“There was laughter and tears,” recalled the launch centre’s former head of
operations, Guy Dubau, visibly moved even 40 years on.
The teams involved in the project had come a long way: just a few days
earlier, on December 15, to everyone’s dismay, the rocket failed to take off
after ignition due to an unanticipated problem with setting parameters.
“We had absolute confidence in these engines,” says Dubau. The failure
“dealt a body blow to the 150 people working in the launch centre”.
– Europa fiasco –
There were only nine days left to fix the problem.
“We had to work around the clock. We even set up a small dormitory in the
centre,” Dubau says.
Then, in a final attempt on Christmas Eve, Ariane lifted off.
“It was a miracle. Two hours more and we would have had to bin the rocket
launcher,” Dubau said.
Sillard said that if it had failed, “it could have dramatic consequences,
and might have even led to the project being abandoned altogether.”
That was because Europe was still smarting from the fiasco of an earlier
project.
The Europa satellite launcher, developed in the 1960s, failed because of a
lack of coordination between the participating countries and the absence of a
single overall project manager.
The Europa programme was abandoned in 1973, the same year that the European
Space Agency (ESA) was set up.
From then on, the management was entrusted to CNES, which contributed more
than 60 percent to the new project.
The stakes were high: the United States had just launched its space shuttle
programme, claiming launch costs would be “five times cheaper than
conventional launchers and that these would disappear”, Sillard said.
Ariane would prove the contrary. But the project was still plagued by an
overall climate of scepticism.
– Ariadne’s thread –
Under French stewardship, more than 50 companies from 10 different
countries worked on developing a new launcher called Ariane, or Ariadne in
English, the name of a Greek mythological princess who left a thread to guide
Theseus out of the minotaur’s labyrinth.
In the same way, the new launcher project would “lead us out of the maze of
European talks,” said Gerard Brachet, a former CNES engineer who went on to
head the organisation.
For the first time, Ariane 1 would break the US hold on satellite launches
and Europe officially entered the space race.
“This first successful launch lent us commercial credibility,” Brachet
said.
For the current president of CNES, Jean-Yves Le Gall, “if this launch
hadn’t taken place 40 years ago, we wouldn’t have the European space industry
that we have today.”
Overall, the Ariane project has been a success and there have been five
generations of rockets to date, despite some setbacks, such as the explosion
of the first Ariane 5 rocket in flight.
Between then and now, the load transported by the rockets has increased
tenfold, says Stephane Israel, the president of Arianespace, the company
responsible for marketing the launcher.
But in recent years, Ariane has come to face much fiercer competition,
particularly from American firm Space X with its reusable launcher.
Europe is fighting back with its Ariane 6, due to take off in 2020.
With much more competitive manufacturing costs, the new generation launcher
will have a re-ignitable engine enabling several charges to be placed in
different orbits during the same mission.
And a potentially reusable motor, Prometheus, is also in the pipeline.