Further important milestone reached in the construction of the Ariane 6 launch facilities

The new European Ariane 6 launch vehicle is to embark on its maiden flight from the Kourou space center in French-Guyana in July 2020. MT Aerospace AG and its Mainz-based subsidiary MT Mechatronics GmbH are constructing the mechanical launch facilities (ELA 4) in the Amazon region in a contract for the French space agency CNES.

With the successful completion of factory acceptance testing and function testing of the fully preassembled deflector, a further important milestone towards the completion of the launch facilities for the new launch vehicle has been reached. The deflector is a 500-ton steel structure with an integrated water cooling system. During the launch phase, it splits the vertical exhaust jet of the engines and diverts it into the two side exhaust ducts. It is cooled with 1.5 cubic meters of water per second so that it can withstand the enormous temperatures.

The deflector is part of the contract that also entails the roughly 650-ton launch table, which is already being assembled in Kourou. The contract also includes the mobile pallet systems used to bring the solid-propellant booster to the launching site as well as the umbilical tower with a height of roughly 66 meters for the Ariane 6.

After being dismantled at the plant, the individual deflector components will be shipped in containers to Kourou, where the deflector will be installed at its final position in the exhaust duct from September 2018.

MT Aerospace and MT Mechatronics have been closely involved in the construction of all launch facilities for the six Ariane generations as well as the Soyuz launcher at the space center in Kourou for over 40 years.

The deflector during the testing of part of the water cooking system at the plant in the Czech Republic
The deflector during the testing of part of the water cooking system at the plant in the Czech Republic
The testing team on the preassembled deflector ©MT Aerospace AG
The testing team on the preassembled deflector ©MT Aerospace AG

Über MT Mechatronics
MT Mechatronics, Mainz, ist aus der Antennensparte der MAN Gustavsburg hervorgegangen. Heute gehören wir zur MT Aerospace AG und OHB SE und sind mit gut 55 Jahren Erfahrung spezialisiert auf schlüsselfertige Kommunikationsantennen, optische und Radioteleskope, Industrieanlagen sowie auf mechatronische Ausrüstungen für Forschungseinrichtungen, Startanlagen für europäische Raumfahrtprogramme und medizinische Apparaturen zur Krebs-Therapie. Unser Angebot umfasst die gesamte Lieferkette von Design, Entwicklung, Fertigung, Systemintegration und Inbetriebnahme, wie auch Training, Wartung und Betrieb der Anlagen.
www.mt-mechatronics.com

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