{"id":64588,"date":"2025-08-13T08:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/64588\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T08:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:06:11","slug":"europes-powerful-ariane-6-rocket-launches-for-3rd-time-ever-sending-weather-satellite-to-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/64588\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe’s powerful Ariane 6 rocket launches for 3rd time ever, sending weather satellite to orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe’s Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket launched for the third time ever tonight (Aug. 12), sending an advanced weather and climate satellite to orbit.<\/p>\n

The powerful Ariane 6<\/a> lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport<\/a> in Kourou, French Guiana today at 8:37 p.m. EDT (9:37 p.m. local time in Kourou; 0037 GMT on Aug. 13).<\/p>\n

Ariane 6, the successor to the recently retired Ariane 5<\/a>, is operated by the French company Arianespace on behalf of the European Space Agency<\/a>. The rocket debuted with a test flight in July 2024<\/a> and flew again this past March, successfully sending a French spy satellite to Earth orbit<\/a> on the rocket’s first-ever commercial mission.<\/p>\n

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An Arianespace Ariane 6 rocket launches the Metop-SGA1 weather satellite from Kourou, French Guiana on Aug. 12, 2025. It was the Ariane 6’s third-ever liftoff. (Image credit: Arianespace)<\/p>\n

Flight number three occured tonight. The payload this time was Metop-SGA1, an 8,900-pound (4,040-kilogram) weather satellite that will be operated by the international group EUMETSAT<\/a> (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites).<\/p>\n

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Ariane 6 deployed Metop-SGA1 into a polar orbit about 500 miles (800 kilometers) above Earth<\/a> 64 minutes after liftoff tonight as planned, Arianespace announced via X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After a checkout period, the satellite will start using its six onboard instruments to gather a variety of weather and climate data. It will continue to do so across its operational life expected to last 7.5 years.<\/p>\n

“The satellite<\/a> will take global observation of weather and climate from a polar orbit to a new level, providing high-resolution observations of temperature, precipitation, clouds, winds, sea ice<\/a>, aerosols, pollution, soil moisture, volcanic dust and a multitude of other parameters,” Arianespace representatives wrote in a mission description<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

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Technicians prepare to encapsulate the Metop-SGA1 weather satellite inside the payload fairing of its Ariane 6 rocket ahead of a planned Aug. 12, 2025 launch. (Image credit: Arianespace)<\/p>\n

Metop-SGA1, which was built by Airbus Defence and Space, is the first of six planned satellites in the Metop Second Generation constellation.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s liftoff was the 355th to date for Arianespace, which also currently operates a smaller rocket called the Vega C.<\/a> Metop-SGA1 was the 15th spacecraft the company has launched for EUMETSAT and the 21st meteorological satellite it has lofted overall, according to the Arianespace mission description.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 8:45 p.m. EDT on Aug. 12 with news of a successful liftoff, then again at 1:35 a.m. EDT on Aug. 13 with news of satellite deployment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Europe’s Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket launched for the third time ever tonight (Aug. 12), sending an advanced weather…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-64588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}