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Europe's New Ariane 6 Rocket to Launch June 15-July 31, 2024

FILE PHOTO: A worker of Ariane Group stands in front of a Ariane 6 rocket's Vulcain 2.1 engine, prior to the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Vernon, France January 12, 2021. Christophe Ena/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A worker of Ariane Group stands in front of a Ariane 6 rocket's Vulcain 2.1 engine, prior to the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Vernon, France January 12, 2021. Christophe Ena/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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Europe's New Ariane 6 Rocket to Launch June 15-July 31, 2024

FILE PHOTO: A worker of Ariane Group stands in front of a Ariane 6 rocket's Vulcain 2.1 engine, prior to the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Vernon, France January 12, 2021. Christophe Ena/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A worker of Ariane Group stands in front of a Ariane 6 rocket's Vulcain 2.1 engine, prior to the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Vernon, France January 12, 2021. Christophe Ena/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket will stage an inaugural flight between June 15 and July 31 in 2024, the European Space Agency said on Thursday.
The keenly awaited window for the first test flight came after a test model of the new rocket passed a key long-firing engine test in French Guiana last week, Reuters reported.
ESA nations agreed in 2014 to develop Ariane 6 in response to growing competition in the commercial launch market but its arrival, originally due in 2020, has been repeatedly delayed.
"I am really happy to make this announcement today because it shows that we are on the good track to flight access to space for Europe," ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told a news conference.
The maiden flight will carry some smaller satellites, including two from NASA, but since it is still considered a test flight, it will not carry "a major payload", ESA added.
The ESA will carry out a few additional tests before the launch to make sure the design is "fault tolerant".
The ESA said it planned a second flight by the end of 2024 and would ramp up further in 2025 to reach a target of 9-10 flights per year.
The launcher is being developed by ArianeGroup, a joint venture between Airbus and Safran, in order to better compete with US private launch provider SpaceX.
Its predecessor, Ariane 5, flew for the last time in July and the smaller Vega C remains grounded following a failure in December last year, leaving Europe without independent access to space. Russia blocked European use of its Soyuz rockets last year in response to Western sanctions over Ukraine.
Last week's test at the European spaceport in French Guiana involved igniting the core-stage Vulcain 2.1 engine and then running it for seven minutes, which is about the time it would take for the launcher to reach space.
Aschbacher said last month he hoped to be able to announce a launch window for an inaugural flight to be held in 2024, depending on the results of the engine test.

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Ozempic Hailed as 'Fountain of Youth' that Slows Aging

The is available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic (Photo by Reuters)
The is available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic (Photo by Reuters)
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Ozempic Hailed as 'Fountain of Youth' that Slows Aging

The is available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic (Photo by Reuters)
The is available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic (Photo by Reuters)

The anti-obesity drug Ozempic could slow down ageing and has “far-reaching benefits” beyond what was imagined, researchers have suggested.

Multiple studies have found semaglutide (available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic) reduced the risk of death in people who were obese or overweight and had cardiovascular disease without diabetes, The Independent reported.

Responding to research published in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, Professor Harlan M Krumholz from the Yale School of Medicine, said: “Semaglutide, perhaps by improving cardiometabolic health, has far-reaching benefits beyond what we initially imagined.”

He added: “These ground-breaking medications are poised to revolutionise cardiovascular care and could dramatically enhance cardiovascular health.”

Multiple reports also quoted Professor Krumholz saying: “Is it a fountain of youth?”

He said: “I would say if you’re improving someone’s cardiometabolic health substantially, then you are putting them in a position to live longer and better.

“It’s not just avoiding heart attacks. These are health promoters. It wouldn’t surprise me that improving people’s health this way actually slows down the ageing process.”

The studies, presented at the European Society of Cardiology Conference 2024 in London, were produced from the Select trial which studied 17,604 people aged 45 or older who were overweight or obese and had established cardiovascular disease but not diabetes.

They received 2.4 mg of semaglutide or a placebo and were tracked for more than three years.

A total of 833 participants died during the study with 5 percent of the deaths were related to cardiovascular causes and 42 per cent from others.

Infection was the most common cause death beyond cardiovascular, but it occurred at a lower rate in the semaglutide group than the placebo group.

People using the weight-loss drug were just as likely to catch Covid-19, but they were less likely to die from it – 2.6 percent dying among those on semaglutide versus 3.1 per cent on the placebo.

Researchers found women experienced fewer major adverse cardiovascular events, but semaglutide “consistently reduced the risk” of adverse cardiovascular outcomes regardless of sex.

Dr Benjamin Scirica, lead author of one of the studies and a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Harvard Medical School, said: “The robust reduction in non-cardiovascular death, and particularly infections deaths, was surprising and perhaps only detectable because of the Covid-19-related surge in non-cardiovascular deaths.

“These findings reinforce that overweight and obesity increases the risk of death due to many etiologies, which can be modified with potent incretin-based therapies like semaglutide.”

Dr Jeremy Samuel Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, praised the researchers for adapting the study to look at Covid-19 when the pandemic started.

He said the findings that the weight-loss drug to reduce Covid-19 mortality rates were “akin to a vaccine against the indirect effects of a pathogen.”