London

It was intended to be a show of strength, but after the spectacular failure of the new 'heavy-lifter' Ariane rocket, the only thing hoisted into space by the European Space Agency (ESA) last week was a weighty doubt over its future in the launch business.

Faced with a grim record of 4 failures from just 14 Ariane 5 launches, some observers were starting to ask if Europe's 25-year-old rocket programme is more trouble than it's worth. But most space scientists appear confident that ESA can ride out the latest failure and go ahead with launches of most of its planned scientific satellites.

An investigation is already under way into what caused the souped-up €150-million (US$150-million) Ariane 5 ECA to veer dangerously off course and self-destruct just three minutes into its maiden flight from Kourou, French Guiana, on 11 December. One of the investigation's first tasks is to determine whether the fault has any bearing on the classic Ariane 5 design — which is supposed to take the Rosetta satellite mission on the first leg of its journey to rendezvous with a comet in just a few weeks' time.

“We have to understand what happened first, but it's most probable that Rosetta will launch on schedule on 12 January,” Jean-Yves Le Gall, director of the ill-fated mission, told reporters at a press conference in Kourou.

The spacecraft is intended to rendezvous with the comet Wirtanen in 2011, when it will place one probe in orbit and land another on the nucleus (see Nature 417, 889; 200210.1038/417889a). The mission aims to observe the comet as it heats up on its approach to the Sun and begins to spew out gas and dust. But if it is to keep its appointment it must be launched before the end of next month.

The rocket's loss is a heavy blow for both ESA and Arianespace, the company it set up to develop and operate the launchers. Each is banking on Ariane 5 ECA's success to win contracts to launch commercial satellites.

“This really couldn't have come at a worse time for Ariane,” says Patrick French, an analyst with consultants Frost and Sullivan in Mountain View, California, who specializes in the satellite industry. The market in commercial satellite launching is depressed because of the slump in the telecommunications industry, French points out. With no military and government contracts, delays could force ESA to request extra cash from its member states to keep the Ariane programme afloat.

The money will probably be found, French says: “Europe is not going to abandon Ariane because it will still want independent access to space.”

David Southwood, ESA's director of science, insists that the European space industry will “rise again” and still has a bright future. “You don't get into this business without realizing that failures happen,” he says. “It's a setback in the short term, but I don't doubt that a launcher of that capability will emerge.”

Although developed primarily for the commercial market, a new class of heavy-lifter rockets will also be used to launch the next generation of deep-space research probes, such as the planned James Webb space telescope, Southwood says.