Ariane 6 first flight (Official broadcast)[video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
Sure, Falcon 9 or Soyuz exists but those are foreign entities that might become unavailable due to politics, therefore a local solution must be developed even if its not the most cost effective. It also must help train and retain local talent and distribute funds to participating parties.
So, it may be a bit expensive but in the end you get a rocket, a workforce who knows how to design and build rockets and they happen to spend the money they receive locally.
IMHO they should invest in video production and art too, no one ever comes close to Space X in that department.
edit: Wow, so much negativity for a successful launch.
Clearly SpaceX have upturned the industry, but to still be so blind to the fact reuse is the future is wilful ignorance.
I'm happy the government funds projects to keep expertise and local know-how, but it would be better if they weren't spending billions to be a decade (or two) obsolete.
Even the USA has these problems, when it comes to government contracts Musk and Bezos fight over it, the Boeing swoops in etc. Can you imagine how hard it is when it involves not only multiple businesses but also multiple countries?
It works well when it has a market dominant customer base, like with Airbus, but when its the governments pushing things into existence its is usually optimised for other needs like contracts being given in such a way that stakeholders are happy.
Launch costs will be at an absolutely minimum twice as much, likely more like 3-5x. It will only be able to launch a handful of times per year.
It is literally bringing a muzzle loader to a machine gun fight.
More expensive but they don't have to ask anybody to fly this thing. You can ask Ukrainians how shitty it is when your supplier doesn't let you do things.
No, that's re-writing history. When the design was started, SpaceX was still busy fumbling landings at sea, and it was not clear-cut that a reusable rocket could be developed and operated in a cost-efficient manner, and the development uncertainty was too high.
Ariane 6's design was selected in 2014. At the time, Falcon 9 1.0 was flying for 4 years, had less than 10t of payload and the first landing and recovery of a first stage wasn't for another year.
Given than the Ariane program is about independent European access to space for institutional launches, efficiency and costs are secondary concerns. Each country pays for a share of a program and expects a corresponding industrial share. Launches aren't priced to expect a financial return, even if Ariane 5 was an unexpected success for geostationary commercial launches in its time.
ArianeGroup produces three main things: Ariane 6, Vega and the M51 missile used on French SSBNs. It's there so that the French can lob nukes without asking the Americans (unlike the Brits) and that the Europeans can lob institutional satellites in space without asking anyone else. It's not there to be SpaceX, to be profitable or to be efficient.
Had the Ariane 5 been a competitive design capable of competing with Soyuz on the low range and compete for big GEO birds on the high end, it would have been far better for European space policy.
A design like Atlas 5. Capable of launching without boosters or with booster for GEO. That would have been smarter then using a combination of Soyuz and Ariane 5.
Reuse supposedly saves massive cost too, but SpaceX isn't charging that much less to customers, and some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables, so that's kind of a dubious claim too.
Those guys chanting such claims are just regurgitating marketing messagings.
https://x.com/BryceSpaceTech/status/1796623202539434297
They're already cheaper than the competition, they have no need to sacrifice their own margin.
What viable business spare that much capacity for themselves?
As for why they're using 2/3 of their launches for themselves, they're doing it because it makes money:
https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2024/05/09/starlink-o...
Everybody should pay attention to this! This is what we call the SpaceX distortion effect.
1/4th of F9 launches are a gigantic number of launches in the pre-SpaceX world.
To act like '25% ony' therefore small, is just complete idiotic and misunderstanding of actual rocket industry.
> so it's not like reuse has converted to sales that much or at all
It has literally allowed for groundbreaking new communication systems that is producing billions of dollers per year. To just act like because they are not making money from selling launches, the launches don't matter is just purely idiotic.
With the increase capacity somebody was gone build a LEO constellation. And SpaceX would have to be part of launching that constellation. Everybody is planning larger constellations. Its just that SpaceX got their first and actually owned that, rather then being the launch provider.
> Reuse supposedly saves massive cost too, but SpaceX isn't charging that much less to customers,
Why would SpaceX massively reduce prices if they have a full manifest and still win most launches? And just FYI, if there ever was a serious commercial thread, SpaceX can just lower prices easily. That why the actual smart people at Arianespace already in 2014 realized that they had no chance long term and by 2018 they knew that even the Ariane 6 wasn't go do it. That's why their marketing changed so much from 'competition' to 'independent access'.
> and some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables
They can talk about it if they want, nobody believes them its just marketing spin for people like you. Every serious company is working on reuse. Even ULA has comited to making their reuse system work because literally everybody knows that reuse is the only way to compete.
Arianespace knows it and doesn't really try to compete. They got some commercial contracts thanks to massive subsidizes and the massive launch shortage that Starlink constellation brought. The other reusable system simply weren't on the market fast enough.
Outside of that Ariane 6 doesn't have much commercial and the universal message from ESA/Arianespace is about forcing European institutions to use Ariane 6 because 'Europe'. Even in their marketing they have stopped claiming to be competitive.
> so that's kind of a dubious claim too.
> Those guys chanting such claims are just regurgitating marketing messagings.
Its only dubious to people who need to categorically hate Musk and claim anybody who says anything good about SpaceX must be some Musk worshiper, rather then just somebody who looks at actual reality.
You are parroting the worst most delusional pro-Europe nationalist PR spin and act like you are above the 'SpaceX fanboys'. Ironically not even the mainstream European PR agrees with your position anymore. You are like relic from pre-2020 still repeating the same delusional spin that made Europe the laughing stock of the global launch market.
While literally every well financed rocket company in the world announced re-usability plans, RocketLab, ULA, Relativity, Blue Origin, NG-Firefly, many in China, Arianespace was still producing PR spin while their rocket was delayed and more and more Arianespace launches shifted to SpaceX. There is basically not a single large new rocket design in the works that doesn't have re-usability plans.
Sadly the idea that anything is competitive when SpaceX launches 100+ times a year is so utterly deranged and delusional that even French burocrates have realized that their media PR was only serving to make them an international laughing stock. That why their PR strategy has radically shifted. Only the people who have to somehow 'own the fanboys' still hold on to that old Arianespace PR nonsense.
Even the French space agencies who was pushing for 'Ariane Next' by 2028 (yes a delusional timeline) was literally proposing a rocket that is basically a Falcon 9 clone with methane fuel, down to the same engine configuration and engine cycle. Its almost as if the actual engineers knew what was up.
But all of these people must be wrong, every rocket company in the world is wrong because 'some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables'. Sure buddy. The rise of non-reusable rockets is just around the corner they are about to make a big comeback soon. I can't wait for that dominate market force to emerge. SpaceX will truly be shook when the cheap mass produced expandable vehicles come online.
Will it launch? sure! Will it deliver some payloads in orbit? Of course. Is it already completely obsolete and completely overpriced? That goes without saying!
They just took the wrong turn many years ago and they have decided that it was better to keep going than to admit that they made a mistake.
If we assume it takes the same amount of time to produce a working version of Ariane Next(the European falcon 9) then it won't arrive before the the mid 2030s and by this point, I would expect Starship or another rocket to have taken over the entire market anyway.
Finally, I want to say that the money that funds this is not magic money that appears out of thin air, it's taxes or debt that we are saddling the next generation with and it seems considering the debt levels in Europe that we should aim to be a tad bit more careful how we spend these budgets.
If it flies and delivers stuff into the space, even at higher prices, its a huge success.
Why do people keep repeating this nonsense. The goals of the project were outlined in 2014 when the project was greenlit. If anybody back then had suggested that
'If it flies and delivers stuff into the space, even at higher prices, its a huge success.'
They would have been laughed out of the room. It directly contradicts the whole rational for the Ariane 6 that made it politically viable.
If what you say was true, then Europe would be flying the Ariane 5 ME and developing a reusable launch vehicle of the future right now.
You are just repeating ESA and Arianespace PR spin, when around 2020 it was clear their 2014 justification were nonsense, the just changed their PR and everybody just repeats it no matter that it directly contradicts the actual rational that was outlined for Ariane 6 in 2014.
They already had a rocket. It was called Ariane 5 and it was being evolved into Ariane 5 ME (that where Ariane 6 got its upper stage engine from).
> a workforce who knows how to design and build rockets
Instead of designing a new rocket that is essentially a minimal upgrade of the existing design, you actually get a workforce who knows how to design an actual modern rocket. Not a design that is inspired by Space Shuttle.
> therefore a local solution must be developed even if its not the most cost effective
... they already had a local solution.
> It also must help train and retain local talent and distribute funds to participating parties.
You can do that by investing in future technology, not minimal upgrades over existing technology.
The reality is simply. It will require 50+ launches for Ariane 6 to be worth it and likely more. And launches that were subsidized, like those they sold to Amazon don't really count.
So the reality is, they could have continue Ariane 5 for a few more years, put some of the lighter payloads on commercial US rockets. And then invest those 5-6 billion $ into an actual modern rocket design.
As it stands, with Ariane 6 Europe is now stuck with a 80s rocket design until likely 2040.
The first stage engine, is very old and very expensive and slow to build. Its a gas-generator and not a very well optimized one. Solids are simply not competitive and only used by government launchers.
Its an architecture that goes back to the Post-Apollo area. The believe in hydorgen fuel and solids is inspired by the Shuttle. Ariane 5 was literally design for a Shuttle clone type system.
The Upper stage, while having an amazing modern engine (20 years in development), is actually just terrible in terms of structural design and is getting out-performed massively by Vulcan 5, Falcon 9 Upper stage and new entrance like Neutron.
The system requires 3 different types of propulsion systems and all of them in low volume. Yeah why would that not be efficient.
SpaceX on the other hand only uses two variants of the same engine. Despite re-usability that engine gets produced in high volumes.
So for each $ invested in better engines, SpaceX improves its whole stack. Arianespace needs to optimize 3 radically different engine system to improve its whole stack.
This partially explains why SpaceX radically out innovated Arianespace even in the same rocket generation.
Go look at what the French Space agency proposed for their 'Ariane Next' design only a few years after Ariane 6 was agree on. It was basically a Falcon 9 design.
Think of the Ariane 6 design like a WW1 bi-plane design evolved for use early in WW2 and we are now already going into post WW2 war jet fighters with systems like Starship/Raptor.
The solid rockets were demanded by military only. The Germans then in control at NASA (Apollo) said what a stupid idea, Lyndon Johnson fired all of them, moved to Houston, and thus the Shuttle desaster began.
The Ariane design is also for military usage mostly.
On top of that, it isn't as if ArianeSpace is just acting as a stopgap until a private provider is ready, they're actively opposing the rise of private providers. They're even lobbying to choke the European satellite industry by forcing them to be restricted to European launchers, regardless of availability or capability.
Yes and no, there are plenty of EU space startups. What Ariane has done is starve them of government funding to build a competitive EU based market. So I'd say it's drawing the investment into a hole.
Just a quick sample of EU space firms I'm aware of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Factory_Augsburg
By gap in domestic capability I'm referring to how various ESA launches had to be shifted to Falcon 9 due to the retirement of Ariane 5, the delays to Ariane 6 and the already booked manifest for Ariane 6.
Also missing the tension a bit, no explosions, no flaps buring and so on. It was kind of boring without that, everything working just fine.
Agree with the sentiment, but is Ariane actually competitive with SpaceX
And if so, how ? Pricing for payload maybe ?
I think you're correct, Ariane isn't "competitive" with SpaceX, but it is "competition", which is a minor but important point.
I've been following SpaceX since the beginning, and I'm a huge fan of what they're doing. At the same time, I really want Ariane and others to be not just "competition" but also "competitive".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next
Would love to see at least one other provider get into reusability.
China is doing a much more aggressive fast follow of SpaceX and ESA just recommitted to this Ariane 6 as the future backbone of EU space launch (they have a lot of vested interests on this rocket so chance of going hard on something else were pretty limited to begin with).
This rocket will probably need at least a billion in subsidies every 2-3 years in addition to forcing EU sats to go on it (for 2x the price of alternatives).
China have basically a clone of the Falcon 9 in testing now. Nine engines, landing legs, etc. etc.
It's famous for accidentally taking off during an engine test recently - https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/chinese-space-firm-uni...
Not much of a predecessor, no.
When they started designing it, there was no interest in producing a reusable rocket, as it was not clear if it could be done in a cost-efficient manner, and the development uncertainty was too high. Hindsight is 20/20.
Of course, they might iterate and re-use some technology from Ariane 6 for a re-usable future launcher, as they leveraged technology from Ariane 5 and Vega for this launcher.
They'd have to move as fast as SpaceX without running into any trouble on their very first time lighting up the fully integrated rocket and have launch licensing paperwork already being worked through to just barely make it to a September launch. Similarly, I bet that the next Starship test won't happen before mid-September/early-October if they stick to the plan of attempting a catch.
Edit: Seems I mixed up the companies, so I'm taking back the ramble against the CEO.
Instead of taking a long term view and really thinking about future rocket strategy, they basically went into emergency 'we need to compete with Falcon 9 (2014 version)' as soon as possible. The then proposed a rocket design that was only minimally different from the Ariane 5.
In fact, at the time, there was a discussion about just continuing with the Ariane 5 and moving on the the Ariane 5 ME. This would have cost 100s of million, not billions. Upgrading the upper stage but otherwise continuing all the existing supply lines and most launch infrastructure. This would have worked for independent access but France wanted commercial success. And France was willing to buy of Italy, by forcing an Ariane 6 design that relied on Italians solids. Together France and Italy managed to push the current Ariane 6.
Even competing with Falcon 9 of 2014 would have been difficult for Ariane 6, but they didn't take into account Falcon 9 improving a lot faster then they imagined. And that's before re-usability. SpaceX improvement of engines and other system was just very rapidly, far, far faster then Arianespace. SpaceX was playing a new game, one of iteratively improving, rather then decades of the same design. And Ariane 6 cost targets were missed as well.
The upgraded from Ariane 5 to Ariane 6 in terms of Main engine are not as significant as those that SpaceX made in the same timeframe. So despite SpaceX not launching a new design, they were innovating faster on their existing design, constantly rolling in new systems and improvements in every subsystem. These addressed performance and operational efficiency. For example the novel concept of deep cryo fuel.
So as the Ariane 6 was starting out, the target they aimed for Falcon 9 was already moving away faster then Ariane 6 catch up. And then Falcon 9 started to make re-usability operational and even the most patriotic French bureaucrat engineer had to understand that competing against SpaceX commercially in their traditional market was just not happening.
Once this was clear, the narrative out of ESA/Arianespace moved very much into 'its all about independent access to space'. Of course, they already had that, but that doesn't stop everybody from constantly repeating that line. Of course it mostly contradicts the rational that Ariane 6 was pushed threw politically, but hey, who is counting a few billion $.
And the promise and importance of continuing their domination of the commercial launch has transformed in three ways. Increase prices since traditional commercial launch isn't happening anyway (to be fair inflation also impacted SpaceX). Try to simply force anything European on the rocket via political pressure. And 3rd just outright subsidize commercial rocket buyers.
While SpaceX dominance was not expected, some things fell really well for Ariane 6. Russia and Europe splitting, made Soyuz go away. That means the major advantage of Ariane 6, namely launching with only 2 small solid boosters was way more useful. And second, that there is a major global shortage of heavy launch vehicles given the explosion of demand.
So in their eagerness to compete with SpaceX they are now subsidizing Amazon to launch on European rockets. Amazing strategy. And that works not because even with that subsidy Ariane 6 is competitive, it works because Amazon literally needs every single heavy lifter in the world to try to compete with Starlink. Amazon simply paying SpaceX to do it would be like literally just handing billions of $ to their direct competitor. Of course Amazon Kupiter only exists because of SpaceX revolution of the industry in the first place.
So what could a smart space policy have been. Quite simply, continue Ariane 5 (maybe do ME). Then simply build a reusable design, inspired by SpaceX Falcon 9 as much as soon as you can. The 5 billion $ not spend on Ariane 6 could have gone into Ariane Eagle (or whatever you want to name it).
A few years ago French basically came out with an Ariane Next design that was basically such a Falcon 9 type design. Initially they claimed 2028 but this was clearly just marketing, nobody actually believed that. Such a rocket now is more likely to launch much closer to 2040, then 2028.
So in the end, we went from only independent access with Ariane 5 to space only to independent access but we paid 5-6 billion $ and no political will to develop a vehicle of the future.
Why is this a problem. Because if you are a first rate space power, you need to launch constellations. If you don't have large amount of launch capacity, you simply aren't a relevant player in the future of space. And without re-usability you simply wont get there.
So this is how Europe went from being actually first in rockets, to being essentially second rate more comparable to Japan then the US or China.
Yeah right
Europe as part of their contribution to James Webb financed the launch. That's the only relevant reason why Ariane 5 was picked. This is consistent with Europeas policy at the time to drive demand for Ariane 5. NASA accept this as Ariane 5 was known to be quite reliable.
You seem to be reflecting the narrative pushed by some unformed people that Ariane 5 was picked because it was somehow 'the best' or 'the safest', this isn't true.
Had Europe not offered this contribution to JamesWebb. ULA would have gotten the contract, in fact they were the only other option. The potential rocket options at the time were Atlas 5, Detla 4 and Delta 4 Heavy. Not sure about Atlas 5/Delta 4 had the performance. Delta 4 Heavy had the performance for sure and that would have likely been the launch vehicle picked. All of those rockets had the necessary certification for missions of the JamesWebb class mission. All those rockets have launched both DoD and NASA missions of the highest certification level.
ULA would 100% not have 'refused'. So I have no idea where or why you said 'And who refused?'. Nobody refused anything.
SpaceX was not at that time an option as they barley existed. The contract was assigned long before SpaceX was a thing in the launch market.
Of course when JamesWebb actually launched, Falcon 9 would have had the certification but this is hardly relevant as the launch was picked a decade before that.
> Yeah right
Congratulations, you played yourself.