A test article of the Ariane 6 upper stage has been removed from its purpose-built test stand in Lampoldshausen to make way for the Phoebus upper stage demonstrator.
The P5.2 Ariane 6 upper stage test stand was built at the DLR facility in Lampoldshausen, Germany, and was inaugurated on 16 February 2019. A full-scale test article of the Ariane 6 upper stage, referred to as the Hot Firing Module (HFM), was then installed on the test stand in February 2021. Over the following years, five HFM test fire campaigns were conducted, with the final one being concluded on 12 April 2024.
Following the successful inaugural flight of the Ariane 6 rocket in July, the future purpose of the test stand will evolve with the rocket it supports.
In a 23 September DLR Institute of Space Propulsion update, the German space agency announced that the HFM test article had been successfully removed from the P5.2 test stand. The stage is now on its way to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands for “another test program.”
Now vacant, preparations for the testing of the Phoebus demonstrator on the P5.2 test stand can begin. Part of ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme, the Phoebus project aims to validate the performance of an upgraded Ariane 6 upper stage called Icarus (Innovative Carbon ARiane Upper Stage). Although ESA has not recently confirmed this, the agency has previously stated that a full-scale structural demonstrator of the upper stage, which would be tested on the P5.2 test stand, would be ready for testing in 2025.
