Ariane 5

Ariane 5 is a European heavy-lift launch vehicle that is part of the Ariane rocket family, an expendable launch system designed by the French government space agency Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES). It is used to deliver payloads into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) or low Earth orbit (LEO).

The Ariane project was instrumental in helping to overcome the European space crisis,[clarification needed] partly because Germans and French worked more closely together to develop the Ariane.

Ariane 5 rockets are manufactured under the authority of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French spatial agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales. Airbus Defence and Space is the prime contractor for the vehicles, leading a consortium of other European contractors.

Ariane 5 is operated and marketed by Arianespace as part of the Ariane programme. The rockets are launched by Arianespace from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.

Ariane 5 succeeded Ariane 4, but was not derived from it directly as Ariane 5 was developed from scratch. Ariane 5 has been refined since the first launch in successive versions, “G”, “G+”, “GS”, “ECA”, and most recently, “ES”. ESA originally designed Ariane 5 to launch the Hermes spaceplane, and thus intended it to be human rated from the beginning.

Two satellites can be mounted using a SYLDA carrier (Système de Lancement Double Ariane, “Ariane Double-Launch System”). Three main satellites are possible depending on size using SPELTRA (Structure Porteuse Externe Lancement Triple Ariane, “Ariane Triple-Launch External Carrier Structure”). Up to eight secondary payloads, usually small experiment packages or minisatellites, can be carried with an ASAP (Ariane Structure for Auxiliary Payloads) platform.

As of January 2018 Arianespace has signed contracts for Ariane 5 ECA launches up till 2022, after the planned introduction of Ariane 6 in 2020.

~ Wikipedia