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The first Ariane 1 lifts off. 12/1979

by

ESA/Novapix

Reference

e-leu11-00002

Date

2006-10-20

The very first Ariane 1 lifts off from the Launch Zone of the Ariane Launch Complex no.1 (ELA-1) at the Guiana Space Centre, Europe's space port, on December 24, 1979. On this maiden flight, the Ariane 1 vehicle successfully lofted a 1,645-kg instrumented payload onto geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).