History: Ariane L01, 1979

The first flight of an Ariane rocket was scheduled for 15 December 1979. On that day, in front of a large and expectant audience at Kourou, the countdown reached zero and the rocket motor underneath the launcher roared into life – and then went out.

Fortunately, the fault was not serious and the launch was rescheduled for 23 December, but then bad weather and a few small problems led to yet another delay. The next attempt proved to be third time lucky. On 24 December, at 14:14 local time, Ariane 1 blasted into space from Europe’s Spaceport and Europe’s independent adventure in space had begun.