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.
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.
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.
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.
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.