Ariane 5 > Launch operations
Ariane 5's streamlined launch campaigns have a duration of approximately 20 days, enabling Arianespace to maintained a sustained flight rate to meet the company's growing commercial order book.
Launch operations are controlled from Spaceport's no. 3 launch center, which was purpose-built for Ariane 5. This launch center's forward zone houses the campaign teams and manufacturers from the Ariane 5 industrial team. Its shielded rear area includes two autonomous control rooms for simultaneous monitoring of two Ariane 5 campaigns, along with a control and command room for housekeeping operations, and three payload rooms for monitoring the satellite payloads.
For a typical Ariane 5 mission, the countdown leads to ignition of the cryogenic core stage at T-0, followed by an automatic verification for its engine's operation during 7.05 seconds. This clears the way for ignition of the two solid-propellant boosters, enabling the Ariane 5's liftoff from its mobile launch table in the Spaceport's ELA-3 launch zone.
The launcher first climbs vertically for six seconds, then rotates towards the East. It maintains an attitude that ensures the axis of the launcher remains parallel to its velocity vector in order to minimize aerodynamic loads throughout the entire atmospheric phase until the solid boosters are jettisoned.
Once this first part of the flight is completed, the onboard computers optimize the trajectory in real time, minimizing propellant consumption to bring the launcher first to the intermediate orbit targeted at the end of the main stage propulsion phase, and then the final orbit at the end of the flight of the cryogenic upper stage.
On orbital injection, the launcher will have attained a velocity of approximately 9,430 meters/second, and will be at an altitude of about 565 kilometers.
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