It takes thousands of people to design, develop, build and operate a complete space launch system. Here we highlight the people from all over Europe working on space transportation to ensure that Europe has independent access to space, to enjoy the benefits from space activities and share them with people of the world. Think of the Ariane 6 transport as a system like a car and the petrol station. They need to work together but they are two different things. As architects we ensure coherence, and optimisation between the two systems.
But the rocket must clear the launch tower, or they would be damaged. This trade-off is just one of the many elements that we discuss a lot. For this example the result is we have a 13 m-long fuelling arm at the top of the launch tower β consider that the arms have to retract in less than hundreds of milliseconds, the engineering behind it is very impressive. Another example is the ignition of the main stage for Ariane 6. Our rocket runs on liquid oxygen and hydrogen that exit the Vulcain 2.
To ensure the hydrogen and oxygen go down to the ignition system we built a nitrogen waterfall N2 Torus , this inert gas traps and pulls the molecules down.
This system contributes to avoid safety risks and help to ignite the Vulcain 2. We in the system architecture teams make and enforce specifications. We had to design and produce parts of the semiconductor chips that ended up in all type of electronics. Although the job at IBM was a great start for my career, I was always interested in space, so when I had the opportunity to work for CNES I took it and never looked back, even though I took a little decrease in salary, totally worth it.
I am very proud of the teams and the work we did, the ECA variant of Ariane was the most launched and at the time the most reliable rocket ever produced, based on Ariane 4 third stage launches experience. I have had so many fun moments over the years, working with all the teams involved in launching rockets.
