Ariane 5 Hermes

Ariane 5H

Mission Profile

The Ariane 5 Hermes (Ariane 5H) was a proposed two-stage European launch vehicle in the Ariane family, designed as a human-rated variant of the Ariane 5 to launch the Hermes crewed spaceplane under the Hermes programme. Standing approximately 54 m tall with a 5.4 m diameter and a liftoff mass of 746 tonnes, it would have generated 12,940 kN of liftoff thrust. Conceived around 1992, the Ariane 5 Hermes was cancelled when ESA decided not to proceed with the Hermes spaceplane, though the Ariane 5 core vehicle went on to a highly successful career in its unmanned configuration.