Europe is back at independent space launches, with the first commercial flight of the European Ariane 6 launcher set for lift-off today at 17:24 CET from Kourou, French Guiana.

Since the retirement of Ariane 5 in July 2023 and the end of Europe’s space partnership with Russia’s Soyuz rocket, the EU has lacked independent capability to launch military or institutional satellites. Now, after a successful test in July 2024, Ariane 6 aims to change that.

The rocket’s first mission is to deploy France’s CSO-3 spy satellite at an altitude of 800 km. This satellite is expected to boost the country’s military operations across air, sea, and land while also facilitating disaster relief efforts, like those following Cyclone Chido in Mayotte last December.

“The CSO-3 allows us to monitor areas we consider sensitive or unstable. This means we can identify and anticipate certain crises,” explained general armaments engineer Michel Sayegh during a press conference last week, as reported by Libération.

Airiane 6 has already 32 missions lined up, including placing several satellites into orbit for the European Commission in 2025: Metop-SG-A1 for weather tracking, Sentinel-1D for Earth observation, and two Galileo navigation satellites – Europe’s answer to GPS.

It has also secured a major commercial deal, launching 18 satellites for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation, the American company’s satellite internet service, in what appears to be a preference for the European launcher over American SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

“Jeff Bezos has developed his own launcher, New Glenn, which made its maiden flight on 16 January, but it remains experimental,” Xavier Pasco, a space expert and director of the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), told Euractiv.

“However, the Amazon founder is eager to break free from SpaceX’s grip to compete with Elon Musk, who currently controls around 70% of operational satellites in orbit.”

“The big tech billionaires are aiming to normalise space by turning it into yet another infrastructure for information transport. Their ambition is also to revolutionise cloud computing by providing secure space-based data storage services,” Pasco added.

Musk will also have his eyes on the skies today, as SpaceX prepares for the second test flight of Starship – the largest rocket ever built – from Boca Chica, Texas.

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