Ariane rocket

The Ariane 5 fairing on a test stand inside the Glenn Research Center's Plumbrook facility in Sandusky, Ohio. The extended 17-m/56-ft fairing (4.3 m/14 ft longer than the standard Ariane 5 fairing) is being developed to allow the European booster to launch heavier payloads, which require additional height.

Series of launch vehicles built by the European Space Agency, mainly to put telecommunications satellites into orbit two at a time. The first flight was in 1979. The launch site is the Centre Spatial Guyanais, at Kourou in French Guiana. Ariane is a three-stage rocket using liquid fuels. Small solid-fuel and liquid-fuel boosters can be attached to its first stage to increase carrying power. Since 1984 it has been operated commercially by Arianespace.

A more powerful version of the rocket, Ariane 5, was launched on 4 June 1996. However, it pitched over and disintegrated. A fault in the software controlling the take-off trajectory was to blame. In October 1998, another Ariane 5 rocket completed a successful mission, launching a dummy satellite into orbit. The model has had further successes, including the launch of India's Insat 3B satellite in March 2000, and the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft launched on 2 March 2004.