
Rocket file · LV-224
Ariane 42P
Photograph: NASA · NASA Image and Media Guidelines · licence
Ariane 42P is an expendable launch vehicle built by Aérospatiale. It stands 55.9 m tall, lifts 6,000 kg to low Earth orbit, first flew on 20 November 1990. It has flown 15 times with 14 successes, a success rate of 93.3%. It has nothing on the Launch Library 2 schedule right now.
Specification
Vehicle spec sheet
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
About Ariane 42P
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
Ariane 42P is retired, and no flight is filed.
All upcoming launchesAriane 42P in the archive
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.



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Common questions
- How many times has Ariane 42P flown?
- 15 times, with 14 successes and 1 failures.
- What is Ariane 42P's success rate?
- 93.3%. That's 14 successful flights out of 15 attempts.
- How much can Ariane 42P lift to orbit?
- Launch Library 2 lists Ariane 42P at 6,000 kg to low Earth orbit and 2,990 kg to geostationary transfer orbit.
- Is Ariane 42P reusable?
- No. Launch Library 2 lists Ariane 42P as expendable, so no stage is recovered to fly again.
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