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Artist's view of the Ariane 6 components showing both a two-booster short version and four-booster long version of Europe’s new rocket. At the top under the fairing – a nose cone that splits into two vertically – are types of satellite configurations that could be launched.
Ariane 6 is Europe’s newest heavy-lift rocket, designed to provide great power and flexibility at a lower cost than its predecessors. The launcher’s configuration – with an upgraded main stage, a choice of either two or four powerful boosters and a new restartable upper stage – will provide Europe with greater efficiency and possibility as can launch multiple missions into different orbits on a single flight, while its upper stage will deorbit itself at the end of mission.
Ariane 6 stands at 56-62 m high depending on the size of the passenger its launching. Ariane 6 has a modular structure consisting of three main portions stacked on top of each other: a main stage with either two or four boosters, an upper (orbital) stage and the payload in its fairing.
The new rocket will be available in two versions depending on the amount of thrust required: the Ariane 62 has two P120C boosters and the Ariane 64 has four, providing extra boost for heavier payloads or destinations further afield.
The core stage is the largest chunk of the Ariane 6 rocket and sits at its base. At 32 m tall, 5.4 m wide and weighing 23000kg without propellants, it is powered by the Vulcain 2.1 engine that burns liquid oxygen and hydrogen to generate 138 tonnes of thrust. The main stage also includes the liquid propellant tanks that house the almost 154 tonnes of liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel. Both have to be cooled to incredibly low temperatures and put under high pressure to get them into liquid form, –182°C for oxygen and –253°C for hydrogen.
Added to the main stage of Ariane 6 are either two or four P120C solid rocket boosters, each 13.5 m long and 3.4 m in diameter. The motor that drives each of these powerful boosters is ESA’s new solid propulsion workhorse, filled with about 142 tonnes of solid propellant each providing about 4500 kN of maximum thrust. Working together the boosters provide most of the thrust during a launch to get Ariane 6 off the launch pad.
The upper (orbital) stage is responsible for orbiting the payload, powered by the all-new restartable Vinci engine and fuelled by 30 tonnes of cryogenically cooled liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. A crucial part of the upper stage is the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) – a small propulsion system that plays a vital role by pressurising the fuel tanks during flight and providing additional thrust on demand. The upper stage will be able to fire up four times, dropping off multiple passengers into different orbits on the same flight and then deorbiting itself through Earth’s atmosphere at the end of its mission, to ensure it does not become space debris.
Ariane 6’s nose cone, technically called the fairing, is 5.4 m wide and fully adapted to carry the widest array of space missions. And it is flexible, available at both 14 m and 20 m tall it could carry four giraffes standing on each other’s shoulders. The fairing consists of two huge half-shells, made in one piece from carbon-glass fiber composite which is ‘cured’ in an industrial oven, reducing cost and speeding up production.