ArianeGroup has shared that the core stage and two boosters for the second flight of the Ariane 6 rocket have been assembled on the ELA4 launch pad at the Guiana Space Centre. At the same time, the flight’s payload, the French CSO-3 spy satellite, arrived at Félix Eboué airport in French Guiana aboard an Antonov transport plane.
The inaugural Ariane 6 flight was successfully completed in July 2024. While the first commercial flight of the rocket was scheduled for later that year, in November, Arianespace, the rocket’s commercial operator, postponed the flight to February 2025.
In preparation for the second flight of the rocket, on 13 January, an Ariane 6 core stage stack was transferred aboard four Automated Guided Vehicles from the Launcher Assembly Building to the ELA4 launch pad, located 800 metres away. The stack, which includes the rocket’s first and second stages, was then successfully verticalized and positioned on the launch pad under the mobile gantry.
The CSO-3 reconnaissance satellite will be launched by an Ariane 62, a two-booster variant of the rocket. On 14 January, the two P120 boosters were transported, one at a time, from the Booster Storage Building to the launch pad and attached to the rocket’s core stage.
As the rocket’s boosters were being transported to the launch pad, an Antonov transport plane landed at Felix Eboué airport with the CSO-3 satellite onboard. The reconnaissance satellite was then unloaded and transported to the Guiana Space Centre’s payload processing facilities to be unboxed and readied for flight.
The 3,500-kilogram CSO-3 satellite will be launched for the French defence procurement agency (Direction générale de l’armement) on behalf of the French Armed Forces (Ministère des Armées). It is the third satellite of the French Optical Space Component (Composante Spatiale Optique) programme, a constellation of three satellites dedicated to reconnaissance for defence and security applications.
Once the satellite has been processed, it will be attached to the payload adapter and encased in the two halves of the Beyond Gravity-manufactured fairing. The combined payload element will then be transferred to the launch pad to be stacked atop the rocket’s core stage ahead of its launch. A 15 January Arianespace press release confirmed that the expected launch date of the CSO-3 satellite would be shared in the coming weeks.
