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Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

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Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#101

Post by Reason077 »

pmezard wrote: post #91
Reason077 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The Russians and the French are not going to abandon their rockets and entrust their nuclear deterrent and early warning system to SpaceX.” The United States is certainly happy to (launch military payloads with SpaceX). Having access to far more launch capacity, far more cheaply, is surely a significant strategic advantage. Edit: Added text in parentheses for clarity.

Are the US sending military payloads with non-US rockets?

The US is sending military payloads with private, low-cost commercial launch provider SpaceX.

The success of this model hasn’t gone unnoticed by China, who are funding several private rocket companies (such as Space Pioneer) to develop reusable launch platforms in competition with the state-owned contractor CASC. They are making rapid progress!

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#103

Post by inglor_cz »

lm28469 wrote: post #85
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s before we start counting in China and, soon, possibly, India. Ariana 6 might be the stupidest civil aerospace project in the world after Boeing’s Starliner.

HN is amazing: Europe does something > Aha it's bad why did they even try Europe doesn't do anything > Aha Europe always late, never innovate, Europe bad

As an European, this project is quite typical for Europe. Technically behind the times, serves French strategic interests, non-competitive on the private launch market.

"Doing something" isn't a goal in itself. Ariane 6 in context of the 2020s is similar to programming a new MySpace app for Symbian OS right now. Hard work, costly, needs a lot of qualified workforce, and the product has very limited audience.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#105

Post by cubefox »

ricdl wrote: post #79
cubefox wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably at most third place, since partly reusable New Glenn (Blue Origin) is already planned to launch in a few months, currently September. Though lower stage reuse might only happen later.

Ariane is apparently so obsolete that they are behind rockets that haven't even launched yet!

Ariane 6 isn't significantly ahead of New Glenn in terms of time. Probably a few months difference for date of first launch. Just as Vulcan launched a few months ahead of Ariane 6.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#107

Post by jinzo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #52
Reason077 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The launch cost is almost 2x the cost of Falcon 9.” This actually seems quite reasonable considering the Ariane 6 is a non-reusable, low-volume design.

> seems quite reasonable considering the Ariane 6 is a non-reusable, low-volume design It’s after subsidies [1]. Actual costs are 4 to 6x Falcon 9, and that’s comparing actual costs today for Falcon 9 to projected costs in the future for Ariane 6. [1] https://www.space.com/europe-ariane-6-rocket-debut-launch

You do know that this article completely forgets to mention if SpaceX got any subsidies? From a quick google search, it seems that this is not the case and I have a feeling that Falcon 9 sticker price is in fact subsidied by the USA. So - why compare apples to apples, when you can compare apples to oranges.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#108

Post by Rinzler89 »

Xixi wrote: post #66
MrSkelter wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon’s costs are a fiction. SpaceX benefits from massive taxpayer support and uses facilities built by the military and NASA. It’s not a like for like comparison especially give SpaceX keeping its books private and giving no clear public indication of how reusable its rockets really are or their refurb cost. Given Musks history of creative accounting quoting their PR numbers, the ones they pitch congress, as facts…

Ariane 6 is quite heavily subsidized, with ArianeGroup getting €340M per year to operate it [1]. With an expected 10 launches per year, that's about €34M/launch. But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter: Europe needs to be able to put its own military satellites (or anything else critical) up there. Military satellites sold to third party countries also won't launch themselves... [1] https://europeanspacef…

>Ariane 6 is quite heavily subsidized

All major aerospace companies and projects are heavily subsidized in every country otherwise they would never survive or even be born. Like how much profit did NASA make over its lifetime?

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#110

Post by justin66 »

threeseed wrote: post #21
ur-whale wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So because an incumbent exists ESA should give up No. But they should learn their lesson and try to run instead of plodding along at a glacial pace. Oh but wait, they're govt funded with no success incentives other than some sort of vague sense of pride for a job well done. My money is on they're not going to come out ahead in the race.

> they're not going to come out ahead in the race What race ? And if there is even one who cares ? If EU pays 10x or 100x more to launch satellites the world isn't going to change all that much.

“It’s not my money.”
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