Family-level launch record combining canonical variants, historical missions, public cadence forecasts, and available payload performance specs.
Historical missions are grouped by actual launch year. Forecast cadence uses family-level launch-rate rows.
| Year | Historical missions | Forecast launches |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 7 | 0 |
| 2017 | 6 | 0 |
| 2018 | 6 | 0 |
| 2019 | 4 | 0 |
| 2020 | 3 | 0 |
| 2021 | 3 | 0 |
| 2022 | 3 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2 | 0 |
Payload capacity by variant and target orbit when structured capacity rows are available.
| Variant | Orbit | Capacity | Altitude | Inclination | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No performance specsNo structured payload capacity rows are linked to this vehicle family. | |||||
Latest launched missions using variants in this family.
| Mission | Variant | Launch |
|---|---|---|
| H2SAT/Syracuse 4B | Ariane 5ECA+ | Jul 5, 2023 |
| JUICE Mission | Ariane 5ECA+ | Apr 14, 2023 |
| Galaxy 35/36/MTG-I1 | Ariane 5ECA+ | Dec 13, 2022 |
| Eutelsat Konnect VHTS Mission |
Canonical variants rolled up into this launch vehicle family.
| Variant | Stages | Missions | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Ariane 5ECA | Not stated | 72 | Retired |
Ariane 5ECA+ | Not stated | 12 | Retired |
Ariane 5ES | Not stated | 8 | Retired |
Ariane 5G | Not stated | 16 | Retired |
Ariane 5ECA+ |
| Sep 7, 2022 |
| Measat 3D/GSAT-24 | Ariane 5ECA+ | Jun 22, 2022 |
| JWST Mission | Ariane 5ECA+ | Dec 25, 2021 |
| SES-17/Syracuse 4A | Ariane 5ECA+ | Oct 24, 2021 |
| Star One D2/Eutelsat Q | Ariane 5ECA+ | Jul 30, 2021 |
Upcoming mission rows with announced launch timing.
| Mission | Variant | Announced |
|---|---|---|
No forecasted missionsNo upcoming announced mission rows are linked to this vehicle family. | ||
Ariane 5G+ | Not stated | 3 | Retired |
Ariane 5GS | Not stated | 6 | Retired |
The three missions that did not take place in 2018—the Arabsat-ISRO Ariane 5, OneWeb’s first Soyuz, and the Italian Space Agency’s Vega launch of Prisma—are on Arianespace’s 2019 manifest.
All five Ariane 5 missions planned for 2019 will carry two satellites each.
Arianespace launched six Ariane 5 heavy-lift rockets, three Soyuz medium-lift rockets, and two Vega light-lift rockets in 2018.
ISRO’s GSAT-11 launched on an Ariane 5 in December alongside the Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s GEO-Kompsat-2A weather satellite.
Intelsat rebooked the Intelsat-38/Azerspace-2 satellite with another Intelsat-Ariane 5 mission that launched in September.
Arianespace had expected to launch India’s GSAT-31 and Arabsat’s Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGEOsat-1 on an Ariane 5 by the end of 2018.
The Ariane 5 lifted off from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana at 3:37 p.m. Eastern on 2018-12-04.
Arianespace scheduled GEO-Kompsat-2B to launch about one year after GEO-Kompsat-2A on an Ariane 5.
KARI’s GEO-Kompsat-2A weather satellite detached from the Ariane 5 upper stage 33.5 minutes after liftoff on 2018-12-04.
Arianespace completed its final Ariane 5 launch of 2018 on 2018-12-04.
Es’hail-2 is Es’hailSat’s second satellite following the 2013 launch of Es’hail-1 on a European Ariane 5 rocket.
Ariane 6 is intended to reduce launch prices by 40 percent compared to Ariane 5.
Italy previously built a 4,400-kilogram Sicral satellite that launched in 2015 on an Ariane 5 rocket.
Greg Robinson is the director of the JWST program at NASA Headquarters and NASA is working to implement the review board recommendation for increased oversight of the Ariane 5 launch.
Thales Alenia Space booked Inmarsat’s Global Xpress-5 geostationary telecom satellite in 2017 and Global Xpress-5 is scheduled to launch in 2019 on an Ariane 5 rocket.
The BepiColombo mission began in 2000 and grew too large to fit in a Soyuz rocket, requiring a switch to the more expensive Ariane 5.
BepiColombo launched to Mercury on 2018-10-19 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.
Arianespace operates Soyuz vehicles from the Guiana Space Centre alongside European Ariane 5 and Vega rockets.
U.S. national space transportation policy generally favors launching U.S. government payloads on U.S. launch vehicles, with rare exceptions such as the planned launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope on Europe’s Ariane 5.
Viasat used the same procurement style for ViaSat-1, which launched in 2011 on an International Launch Services Proton, and for ViaSat-2, which launched on an Ariane 5.