Luxembourg, 22 October 2020. – After the successful testing of all engines, ArianeGroup has now assembled the first upper stage of the Ariane 6 rocket, the company announced.ArianeGroup’s teams in Bremen, Germany, have assembled the first Ariane 6 rocket upper stage, coupling the launcher’s tanks with the equipped engine bay of the re-ignitable Vinci engine.
“This extremely high-precision operation brought together Ariane 6’s oxygen and hydrogen tanks and the support structure of the Vinci engine, which can be re-ignited several times in flight.”
The upper stage will now undergo its first mechanical, fluid and electrical tests, before leaving Bremen towards the end of the year to travel to the German Space Agency (DLR) site in Lampoldshausen in Southern Germany where the complete stage will be hot-fire tested on a testbench specially designed for the Ariane 6 upper stage development.
This is the first time that an entire Ariane 6 rocket liquid propulsion stage will be tested, rather than just the engine, ArianeGroup said.
