{"id":696296,"date":"2026-07-17T08:19:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696296\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T08:19:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:19:22","slug":"esa-selects-ariane-6-to-launch-deep-space-cubesat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696296\/","title":{"rendered":"ESA Selects Ariane 6 to Launch Deep Space CubeSat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ESA-Selects-Ariane-6-to-Launch-Deep-Space-CubeSat.webp\" alt=\"ESA has selected Ariane 6 to launch its Henon CubeSat, which will demonstrate a future solar storm-monitoring capability.\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6812\"  \/>Credits: ESA \/ S. Corvaja<\/p>\n<p>The European Space Agency has awarded a contract to launch its solar storm-monitoring CubeSat on an Ariane 6 rocket.<\/p>\n<p>Scheduled for launch in early 2027, the Henon CubeSat will be flown as a secondary passenger alongside ESA\u2019s PLATO telescope, which will be tasked with finding Earth-like exoplanets. According to the agency\u2019s 16 July press release, a feasibility study was first conducted with Arianespace to confirm that CubeSats could be safely accommodated as secondary payloads aboard an Ariane 6 flight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHenon was a reference case, but we also looked at how many CubeSats could be accommodated in this launch architecture,\u201d said Roger Walker, Head of CubeSat missions at ESA. \u201cWe can fit up to four 16U CubeSats, in fact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While the feasibility study was conducted with Arianespace, the press release did not confirm whether the launch contract was awarded directly to the commercial operator of Ariane 6 or to a launch aggregator. Arianespace was <a href=\"https:\/\/europeanspaceflight.com\/arianespace-secures-three-ariane-6-launch-deals-in-two-days\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">awarded the contract for the launch of PLATO<\/a>, the mission\u2019s primary passenger, in January 2025.<\/p>\n<p>According to ESA, once launched, the Henon probe, which is being built by Italy\u2019s Argotec, will become the \u201cfirst CubeSat ever to independently venture into deep space, communicate directly with Earth and manoeuvre to its final destination without relying on a larger \u2018parent\u2019 spacecraft.\u201d This claim is debatable, though.<\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s MarCO CubeSats, a pair of briefcase-sized spacecraft nicknamed \u201cWall-E\u201d and \u201cEve\u201d, arguably ticked all three of those boxes back in 2018. While launched alongside the InSight Mars lander, the CubeSats were deployed separately from the rocket\u2019s upper stage and cruised to Mars independently, performing trajectory correction manoeuvres with cold-gas thrusters. The two CubeSats also communicated directly with Earth and relayed InSight\u2019s landing telemetry in real time.<\/p>\n<p>Even if Henon\u2019s claim to a first is contested, the mission will be more complex than those that came before it. The MarCO twins performed a ballistic flyby of Mars with only minor course corrections. Henon will use its miniaturised electric propulsion system to manoeuvre into a distant retrograde orbit around the Sun, a far more demanding task. Once in its operational orbit, Henon will monitor solar activity to demonstrate an early-warning capability for solar storms.<\/p>\n<p>        Keep European Spaceflight Independent<\/p>\n<p>Your donation will help European Spaceflight to continue digging into the stories others miss. Every euro keeps our reporting alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credits: ESA \/ S. Corvaja The European Space Agency has awarded a contract to launch its solar storm-monitoring&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[89875,5878,90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-696296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ariane-6","tag-european-space-agency","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}