When Amazon badly needed a ride, Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket delivered
Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav The heavy version of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket launched for the first time Thursday, hauling 32 spacecraft to low-Earth orbit for Amazon’s satellite broadband constellation. The Ariane 6 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center on the northeastern coast of South America at 11:45 am EST (16:45 UTC), quickly soaring into a clear sky at the tropical spaceport on the power of a hydrogen-fueled main engine and four strap-on solid rocket boosters. This Ariane 6 configuration, called Ariane 64, is the first to use the rocket’s full complement of four boosters. Collectively, the rocket generated…
