I guess. Ariane V (ESA's version of the Space Shuttle, in that it's an overpriced white elephant) had its first successful launch yesterday. A previous attempt a couple years ago was a failure.

[Update in the evening]

A commenter points out that I was too inspecific in describing the vehicle that failed:

Hehe, talk about misleading news postings. Even though you might hate the french, you could stick to facts.

The Ariane 5 G version has launched succesfully 19 times and failed once.
Ariane 5 EC-A, which is an upgraded version, was now launched succesfully for the first time, having failed once before.

So your post would be correct if you said "Ariane 5 ECA had it's first successful launch".

While I stand second to none in my dislike of the French, my snark was more aimed at stasist government space programs, and unjustified Arianespace triumphalism.

The Ariane V is overpriced partly because it's oversized. The Ariane V is oversized for satellite jobs because it was sized for launching the (cancelled) French Hermes manned spaceplane.

So right now the Europeans have a booster with no manned vehicle for it, while the Russian Kliper manned program has no Russian booster available. I forsee a convenient matching up of European and Russian interests here. An Ariane V launched Kliper?

As I understand it, the Ariane 5 was sized based on projections of the size of geostationary orbit communications satellites.

Hehe, talk about misleading news postings. Even though you might hate the french, you could stick to facts.
The Ariane 5 G version has launched succesfully 19 times and failed once.
Ariane 5 EC-A, which is an upgraded version, was now launched succesfully for the first time, having failed once before.
So your post would be correct if you said "Ariane 5 ECA had it's first successful launch".

About the white elephant, everyone could just buy all their rockets cheaply from Russia... Now that they're building a Soyuz pad at Kourou, that just might become the practice. ESA reflew the Cluster probes that failed on Ariane 5 on Souyz. (Had to do 2 flights but it was still cheaper I think.)

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ariane5g.htm

I could be wrong but my statement about Ariane V sizing was based on information I found at astronautix.com

test

Yeah, it indeed is a bit big, but it has also succesfully launched such "big missions" like Envisat, XMM and Rosetta. And it has been a somewhat succesfull commercial launcher, launching 2 geosats at a time.

I wonder if that big solids / hydrogen sustainer configuration was just a copy of the shuttle.

The original Ariane 5 G maiden fight failure in 1996 was because of software that was copied from Ariane 4 and didn't work correctly in the new environment. And the new Ariane 5 ECA failed in 2002 because of the german sustainer engine failing.

There's also a third version of Ariane 5 for the ATV space station supply vehicle.

"Unjustified... triumphalism" Funny, that would be a good
description of most of the ink Ive seen on Burt Rutan and
SS1 over the last year and half.

It's "unjustified triumphalism" to cheer they're winning the X-prize? Which, as I recall, they did...

Interesting comparing the Ariane-5EC-A with the Saturn-1B.
2 Ariane-5 EC-A's would carry the same payload as a Saturn V, near enough. With LEO rendezvous, 3 could get you a decent Moonshot (Command Module, Kicker, Lander), with a craft somewhat larger than Apollo/LEM.

Though the odds of the ESA doing something like that in the next 2 decades are about the same as monkeys flying out of my.... I'll stop there.

Thanks, meiza, for the clarification. I may also have been duped by a similar report. CNN International (sorry, can't find the link) had a report leading the reader to believe the launch was the "inaugural" launch of the Ariane 5, when it was the first launch of the upgraded booster.

. . . .the first "successful" launch of the upgraded booster.

Here's the link I was looking for.

I remember seeing a concept design for a heavy lift version of Ariane 5 using four solids instead of two some years ago. I suppose they would also need to beef up the second stage.

But I doubt that will ever happen. Other than Aurora, which has a small budget, there is no project involving surface expeditions to the planets or the moon. The French and German economies are not on top shape right now either, if something like this was to happen they would most likely be the ones funding most of it. Between Ariane 5 upgrades, working on the next-generation vehicle, military satellites, Galileo, and science missions, I do not think there will be much money left.