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Ariane 4 was an expendable launch system, designed by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales and manufactured and marketed by its subsidiary Arianespace. Ariane 4 was justly known as the "workhorse" of the Ariane family. Since its first flight on 15 June 1988 until the last, on 15 February 2003, it made 113 successful launches. It was known to be an extremely versatile launcher. The Ariane 4 proved ideal for launching communications and Earth observation satellites as well as those for scientific research. During its working life, Ariane 4 captured 50% of the market in launching commercial satellites, demonstrating Europe's ability to compete in the commercial launch sector. == History == In 1973 eleven countries, called together by the European Space Agency (ESA), decided to take Europe down its own path in the space field. Six years later in 1979, Ariane 1 was launched from Kourou. Following development work on variants 1, 2 and 3, Ariane 4 was able to draw on the experience gained from these earlier variants. The development program began in 1983 and the first successful launch was on 15 June 1988. The system became the basis for a European satellite launches with a record of 113 successful and three launch failures. Ariane 4 provided a payload increase from 1700 kg for Ariane 3 to a maximum of 4800 kg to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The record for Ariane 4 to GTO was 4946 kg.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Ariane 4 )〕 The Ariane 4 Launch Team was awarded the Space Achievement Award by the Space Foundation in 2004.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Space Achievement Award )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ariane 4」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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