In the aerospace context, Ariane is a series of European rockets developed and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French Space Agency CNES.
The Ariane rockets are used for a variety of missions including launching communications satellites, Earth observation satellites, scientific spacecraft, and interplanetary missions. Ariane rockets are known for their reliability and long history of successful launches.
Examples of Ariane rockets include:
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Ariane 1: The first Ariane rocket, which was launched in 1979 and was used for a total of 13 launches.
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Ariane 2 & 3: The Ariane 2 and 3 rockets were launched in the 1980s and were used for a total of 54 launches.
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Ariane 4: The Ariane 4 rocket was launched in the 1980s and 1990s and was used for a total of Ariane 4 was used for a total of 113 launches.
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Ariane 5: The current generation Ariane 5 rocket, which has been in service since 1996. It is capable of launching payloads weighing up to 10 tons into geostationary orbit, and is used for commercial, scientific and institutional missions.
The Ariane program has been a major contributor to the European Space Agency's (ESA) capability to launch payloads into space independently. The Ariane rockets have been used to launch numerous scientific and commercial payloads, including the Huygens probe to Titan, the Rosetta spacecraft to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and the BepiColombo spacecraft to Mercury.
In addition to the Ariane rockets, the European Space Agency (ESA) is also developing new launcher called Ariane 6, which is planned to be launched in 2022. Ariane 6 is designed to be more cost-efficient than its predecessor Ariane 5, while maintaining its reliability and capability.