Top start for commercial flights. Nine months after her inaugural flight in July 2024, Ariane-6 carried out her first mission Thursday, March 6. After two consecutive postpones, on February 26 and March 3, the European rocket won a CSO-3 military observation satellite on behalf of the Directorate General of Armament (DGA) and the National Center for Spatial Studies, for the benefit of the command of the Air Force and Space.
This spy satellite was successfully placed in Héliosynchrone orbit, about 800 kilometers from the earth, according to Arianespace. An integral part of the Musis recognition and identification program piloted by the DGA, it completes the CSO mini-constellation (for “optical space component”) now formed by three elements. The first two, CSO-1 and CSO-2, were launched respectively in 2018 and 2020. CSO-3 should have joined them in 2021, and be launched from the Guyanese space center, in Kourou, by a Soyuz Russian rocket, like the previous two. But, due to delays in the program, the theft had been shifted from one year, to March 2022. The launch was then canceled, following the cessation of cooperation with the Russians in the aftermath of the trigger of the invasion in Ukraine, from February 2022. Ariane-5 was not available and Vega-C not powerful enough, it was necessary to wait for Ariane-6, years later, because there was no question of launching this strategic satellite outside Kourou and entrusting it to an American launcher.
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