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A4

Rocket file · LV-223

Ariane 42L

Aérospatiale · Ariane · RETIRED

Ariane 42L is an expendable launch vehicle built by Aérospatiale. It stands 55.6 m tall, lifts 7,000 kg to low Earth orbit, first flew on 12 March 1993. It has flown 13 times with 13 successes, a success rate of 100.0%. It has nothing on the Launch Library 2 schedule right now.

Specification

Vehicle spec sheet

ON FILE
Height55.6 m
Diameter3.8 m
Payload to LEO7,000 kg
Payload to GTO3,590 kg
Maiden flight12 March 1993
ReusableNo, expendable
Launch costNOT ON FILE
StatusRETIRED

As listed by Launch Library 2. The cost is Launch Library’s figure, not a quoted price. Figures for rockets outside the sixty most-flown were last read on 2026-11-05.

Flight record

Reliability

ON RECORD
Total flights13
Successful13
Failed0
Success rate100.0%
Landing attempts0
Landing successN/A
Scheduled0
Variant42L

About Ariane 42L

The Ariane 4 was an expendable space launch system, developed by the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was manufactured by ArianeGroup and marketed by Arianespace. Since its first flight on 15 June 1988 until the final flight on 15 February 2003, it attained 113 successful launches out of 116 total launches.

Upcoming flights

Manifest

EMPTY

Ariane 42L is retired, and no flight is filed.

All upcoming launches

From NASA's public image library and Wikimedia Commons. Each photo shows the credit its licence asks for and links back to where it came from.

Ariane4
Ariane4uploaded by User:Rama , from NASA photo. · public domainWikimedia Commons ↗
Ers1ariane4mod
Ers1ariane4modabrev · public domainWikimedia Commons ↗
Ariane 44LP clone at Space Center Bremen
Ariane 44LP clone at Space Center BremenUser:Flor!an · CC BY-SA 3.0Wikimedia Commons ↗

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Common questions

How many times has Ariane 42L flown?
13 times, with 13 successes and 0 failures.
What is Ariane 42L's success rate?
100.0%. That's 13 successful flights out of 13 attempts.
How much can Ariane 42L lift to orbit?
Launch Library 2 lists Ariane 42L at 7,000 kg to low Earth orbit and 3,590 kg to geostationary transfer orbit.
Is Ariane 42L reusable?
No. Launch Library 2 lists Ariane 42L as expendable, so no stage is recovered to fly again.