Nine months after its maiden flight in July 2024, Ariane-6 completed its first mission on Thursday, March 6. After being postponed twice, on February 26 and March 3, the European rocket carried a CSO-3 military observation satellite on behalf of the Direction Générale de l'Armement (DGA, France's government defense procurement agency) and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES, National Space Study Center), for the Air Force and Space Command.

This spy satellite was successfully placed in sun-synchronous orbit some 800 kilometers from the Earth. An integral part of the DGA-led Musis reconnaissance and identification program, it completes the CSO (for "optical space component") mini-constellation now made up of three elements. The first two, CSO-1 and CSO-2, were launched in 2018 and 2020 respectively. CSO-3 should have joined them in 2021, and been launched from the French Guiana Space Center in Kourou by a Russian Soyuz rocket, like the previous two. However, due to delays in the program, the flight was postponed by one year, to March 2022. The launch was then canceled after the cessation of cooperation with the Russians after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. As Ariane-5 was not available and Vega-C not powerful enough, it took until Ariane-6 was commissioned two years later, as there was no question of launching this strategic satellite out of Kourou and entrusting it to an American launcher.

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