Europe’s new heavy-lift Ariane 6 rocket will make its long-awaited debut today (9 July).
If all goes according to plan, Ariane 6 will lift off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 2 p.m. EDT (6 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday. The launch will last four hours.
You can watch the launch live here on Space.com, courtesy of the European Space Agency (ESA); reporting starts 30 minutes before launch.
The Ariane 6, operated on behalf of ESA by the French company Arianespace, replaces the venerable Ariane 5, which was retired last year after 117 flights in almost three decades.
The Ariane 6 has been in development for almost a decade. It was originally set to debut in 2020, but technical issues and external concerns such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine have pushed the timeline back several times.
Europe has high expectations for the new launch vehicle, which is expected to launch nine to twelve times a year from 2026.
Ariane 6 “will ensure our guaranteed, autonomous access to space – and all the science, Earth observation, technology development and commercial opportunities that come with it,” ESA officials wrote in a preview of the first launch.
“With many brand new features for Ariane 6, we can carry more and take it further, while sustainably disposing of the launch vehicle’s upper stage to prevent it from breaking down. [from] “It will be space junk,” they added.
Related: Finally: Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket debuts on July 9
Ariane 6 will launch nine cubesats into low Earth orbit (LEO) on Tuesday, if all goes according to plan. The rocket will also carry a number of non-orbital experiments, including two reentry capsules that will undergo a trial by fire as they re-enter our planet’s thick atmosphere.
The upper stage of the rocket will also return to Earth, as ESA noted in its mission preview. But the upper stage will not survive the journey and will burn up in our skies.