Europe鈥檚 Ariane 5 rocket made a flawless return to service late on Wednesday, placing two commercial satellites into perfect orbits.
The success of the flight is a vital boost for Arianespace, the European space consortium that operate the launcher. All flights were grounded after an upgraded version of the same rocket exploded shortly after lift-off in December 2002. Two commercial satellites were destroyed in the accident.
Arianespace has also faced increasing competition in a depressed satellite launch market and, in February 2003, it retired the smaller, but very reliable, Ariane 4 rocket.
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The standard Ariane 5 launcher blasted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 2252 GMT. The rocket carried INSAT-3A, a communications and meteorological research satellite built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and Galaxy XII, a commercial telecommunications satellite. The launch was initially scheduled for Tuesday but was delayed after ISRO asked for more time to check INSAT-3A.
鈥淲e have worked extremely hard to achieve tonight鈥檚 success,鈥� Arianespace CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall said from Kourou. Shortly after the flight, Arianespace also announced two new launch contracts with the Indian government.
Cooling system
An inquiry into December鈥檚 launch failure blamed the malfunction on a component unique to the upgraded Ariane 5 ECA craft. A cooling system on the rocket鈥檚 Vulcain 2 first stage engine is thought to have sprung a leak during take off, causing the rocket to veer off course.
But the inquiry board also called for a safety review of all Ariane 5 variants. Engineers have spent the last three months examining the standard launcher鈥檚 Vulcain 1 first stage engine. They concluded it was safe for launch.
The grounding of all Ariane 5 rockets set back a number of satellite launches. It also significantly delayed the European Space Agency鈥檚 Rosetta mission to land a probe on a comet for the first time. The mission had only a brief launch window in January 2003 and has now been set back until 2004.
The Ariane 5 ECA is first European rocket designed to carry 10 tonnes into geosynchronous transfer orbit. This next flight of this version of the Ariane 5 launcher is expected to carry a dummy cargo into orbit rather than a commercial satellite.