“The Ariane 6 rocket taking off was magical!”
A few days ago, you attended the first launch of the Ariane 6 rocket from the Kourou base in French Guiana. What does this special occasion feel like?
A mixture of wonder at the technical feat and gratitude for those who contributed to it. I experienced it as a sensitive experience. The Jupiter control center where I was, on the Kourou base, allows you to take the measure of it. It is a large room in the shape of an amphitheater whose first rows are separated by a glass wall. In this “aquarium”, the operations director and the teams supervise the launch in front of their computers and control screens.
The countdown must be a special moment…
Especially for a first flight like this. We see the lights turning green as we go along, showing that the operations are going well. The evening of July 9 was magical: the timeline was impeccable, we had a feeling of great serenity. The takeoff of a new Ariane rocket is wonderful.
Is there one phase more stressful than another?
Filling the fuel tanks is a very delicate and complex moment. You can feel a great mixture of concentration and emotions.
But this isn’t the first time that a rocket has taken off from Kourou?
Yes, the French space center in Guyana has been operational since the 1960s. But Ariane 6 belongs to the new generation of launchers. It improves on previous programs (Ariane 4, Ariane 5, etc.), which already have a great career behind them. On July 9, we were inevitably faced with a lot of unknowns and uncertainties. The risk of failure for a first flight is always high. You can imagine the immense pressure felt by the teams, well aware of the technological and political stakes of such a moment.
Because it is also a political matter?
Maintaining sovereign access to space is essential in these sensitive technological areas. However, for over a year, Europe no longer had the means to be autonomous in this area. Ariane 5 bowed out on July 5, 2023, and the lighter Italian Vega launcher failed during its first flight in December 2022. Originally scheduled for 2020, the first launch of Ariane 6 was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and technical difficulties that are inevitable in a project of this complexity. And now, it is the war between Russia and Ukraine that is adding another difficulty.
However, Guyana seems far from this conflict…
Not so much. In the early 2000s, at the Kourou site, we developed a Russian Soyuz rocket launch program to bring flexibility to our operations. Since 2022, this cooperation has been suspended.
What’s new in Ariane 6?
The international satellite market has changed profoundly. The Ariane 5 program, which was reaching its 117th flight, was mainly used to launch large telecommunications satellites and was no longer competitive. The arrival of private players, such as the American Space X, has caused prices to fall drastically. Ariane 6 must meet these challenges.
Why maintain such spatial ambition in today’s world? Wouldn’t it be a luxury for scientists far removed from the daily lives of citizens?
Not at all! Do you use GPS or navigation tools on your mobile phone every day? This would not be possible without the presence of dedicated satellites. For this purpose, Europe has developed its own program in recent years, called Galileo. For the protection of data and the sovereignty of European countries, this is fundamental. On many other current issues, access to space is also essential. How is our climate changing? And sea levels? And forest fires? And monitoring animal populations? etc. Collecting this information requires observation satellites dedicated to these specific studies.
Isn’t the conquest of space an old legacy of 20th century military conflicts?
The need to observe our planet comes from the history of the Cold War, when it was necessary to be able to assess the development of the nuclear program of the other bloc. Now, other challenges await us, including that of climate change. And if we want to participate in negotiations with other countries, our expertise and know-how must be recognized. Especially since the European approach carries important values during these debates.
What do you mean by “European values” in space?
In times of high international conflict, with authoritarian states like Russia asserting themselves strongly in space, European space technology is first and foremost at the service of our continent’s democratic project. Scientific progress contributes greatly to this. It also makes it possible to create forms of cooperation that are always necessary, as demonstrated by the launch a few weeks ago of the Franco-Chinese SVOM satellite. It carried a French instrument, ECLAIRs, capable of studying radiation from very far away in the Universe.
The progress of science may seem worrying. A certain form of skepticism even seems to be reborn.
Yes, it is true, as evidenced by conspiracy theories widely relayed on social networks. But how can we do science without trusting those who do it? No citizen can understand alone the calculations or tests carried out in the laboratory, in all fields of science. If social networks amplify this often irrational mistrust, it seems to me all the more important not to relax our educational effort in schools to transmit essential knowledge.
As a mother of three young children, are you confident about what they will have to experience in the world we are leaving them?
There is reason to be objectively worried at times. Climate change, violent conflicts on the doorstep of Europe, the development of a culture of generalized surveillance… All of this has its terrifying sides. But they must not prevent us from hoping and from passing on this hope to our children. In this sense, the transmission of solid reference points in life seems to me to be an increasingly necessary and urgent educational task.
Will your children ever go to Mars? Do you wish that for them?
I am not firmly convinced that our destiny is to colonize other planets. If we took better care of our only blue planet, that would already be magnificent. This involves avoiding unnecessarily cluttering our near space with oversized projects such as these constellations of thousands of small satellites that private players want to develop. Here too, we will have to sit down at a table at some point to avoid turning space into an unmanageable Wild West. European players are already thinking about a space bill to contribute to necessarily international regulation, as we have been able to do for example in the field of personal data. This is yet another ongoing commitment that makes French and European space players indispensable and truly credible with their international partners.