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<\/p>\nVol VA266 | Galileo L14 | Ariane 6 | Arianespace – YouTube
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Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Europe’s towering Ariane 6 rocket is gaining momentum in the heavy-lift launch market as the vehicle gears up for its fifth flight.<\/p>\n The first pair of Galileo navigation satellites to launch on an Ariane 6<\/a> are scheduled to liftoff from Europe’s Spaceport<\/a> in Kourou, French Guiana on Wednesday (Dec. 17) at 12:01 a.m. EST (0501 GMT; 2:01 a.m. local time in Kourou).<\/p>\n Galileo Launch 14 (L14) will send the spacecraft pair to join 26 other active satellites<\/a> in the constellation, which is Europe’s equivalent to the Global Positioning System<\/a> (GPS) used by the United States. The launch will be broadcast live<\/a> by Arianespace, which operates the Ariane 6, and livestreamed here,on Space.com tonight (Dec. 16) beginning at 11:35 p.m. EST (0435 GMT on Dec. 17).<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n \n An Arianespace Ariane 6 rocket launches the Sentinel-1D Earth-observation satellite from French Guiana on Nov. 4, 2025. (Image credit: Arianespace)<\/p>\n The L14 satellites are scheduled to deploy about 3 hours and 20 minutes after liftoff and will then spend three days unfolding their solar arrays and running checks on critical systems. The two satellites<\/a> will then enter a four-month drift and positioning phase before settling into their final orbital position to begin operation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Galileo constellation circles Earth at an altitude of 14,429 miles (23,222 kilometers). To date, most of the 1,610-pound (730 kilograms) spacecraft have been launched aboard Europe’s Ariane 5, which retired in 2023<\/a>, or the Russian-built Soyuz<\/a> rocket, an arrangement that Europe ended following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n Europe tapped SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to fly Galileo satellites<\/a> after the invasion, but now that Ariane 6 is operational, the continent can loft those missions without depending on outside launch providers.<\/p>\n This will be the fifth-ever launch of the Ariane 6, which completed four successful flights over the past year, with its most recent lifting off just over a month ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2WVVftogQeCFnMjqs8JqkW.jpg\")
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