Two new rockets just launched within 30 minutes of each other, with each vehicle lifting off for just the third time.
First up, Arianespace’s Ariane 6 launched from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 8:37 p.m. ET on Tuesday, August 12.
A short while later, United Launch Alliance (ULA) sent its heavy-lift Vulcan Centaur rocket skyward from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral, Florida, some 4,300 miles from the Ariane 6’s launch site.
Ariane 6 launch
The Ariane 6, which first launched in July 2024, carried the EUMETSAT’s MetOp-SGA1 satellite, the first of a new generation of European polar-orbiting weather satellites.
The satellite will be deployed to a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) about 497 miles (800 km) above Earth.
This latest mission supports European climate and weather forecasting and marks further progress for the Ariane 6 program.
Vulcan launch
Less than 30 minutes after the Ariane 6 left the launchpad, ULA’s Vulcan rocket blasted off from Florida’s Space Coast just before 9 p.m. ET.
The Vulcan’s primary payload was the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3), an experimental navigation satellite designed to demonstrate advanced positioning, navigation, and timing signals that are more resilient to jamming and spoofing compared to GPS.
The mission marks the first experimental navigation satellite launch by the U.S. in nearly 50 years. The new NTS‑3 satellite will conduct a year-long on-orbit experimentation exercise to validate technologies deigned to enhance robustness against jamming and spoofing, which are becoming growing issues for satellites as countries try to gain the upper hand over their adversaries, especially when it comes to military strategy.
The Vulcan rocket, which first flew in January 2024, also carried additional payloads, but due to their classified nature, details about these were not made public.
Both of Tuesday’s launches represent significant steps for these new heavy-lift rockets, with both vehicles appearing to make flawless flights to space.
And there may be even more rocket action on Tuesday as SpaceX prepares to test fire the engines of its Starship spacecraft ahead of the 10th flight of the most powerful rocket ever to leave the launchpad.
