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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

#151

Post by inglor_cz »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #140
inglor_cz wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the problem, right? EU countries, not having a reusable rocket at their disposal, will have to pay through the nose for every launch, discarding the entire expensive rocket in the process. Of course, that will limit their ability to launch satellites into space: the cost of discarding a rocket is high (let's not even start about fairing dimensions and subsequent limits on payload size). Wrecking a sophisticat…

So EU having Arianne 6 is actually a good thing.

It is better than not having it. In the same sense that it is better having a steam-powered railway than no railway capacity at all.

But spending on development of new steam engines when the competition already has electric ones is pretty backward.

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

#152

Post by threeseed »

nordsieck wrote: post #72
threeseed wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> If EU pays 10x or 100x more to launch satellites the world isn't going to change all that much. That may be true for a few military satellites. But ESA is talking about putting up a Europoean mega-constellation. In that context, launch costs do really matter.

> In that context, launch costs do really matter.

Not really.

Strategically important projects rarely live or die based on costs.

Especially when they are a fraction of the total spend on the project.

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

#153

Post by cubefox »

kranke155 wrote: post #116
cubefox wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

New Glenn still has to fly though

There is little doubt that it will do so in a few months. The main engines have already been tested successfully on Vulcan, a few months ago.

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

#154

Post by lapphi »

627467 wrote: post #139
pmontra wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will still be building that knowledge inside Europe. Rocketry in general is deemed to be strategic so it's OK for any country to invest money in that, keep scientists and engineers on the subject, keep the industries alive, etc. It's not only about access to space, it's also about defense.

will it? or will engineering talent just move elsewhere after realizing their talents are wasted in bureaucratland?

Is nationalism really so far in the past already

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

#155

Post by The_Colonel »

Reason077 wrote: post #148
The_Colonel wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge strategic weakness is depending on a foreign country (perhaps even worse - one moody individual) for your launches.

SpaceX is a 100% American company. Moody individual notwithstanding, they are no less American than Boeing or ULA or anyone else.

I don't get what your point is. I didn't question if it's an American company or not.

Edit: ok, got it now. This is about a European rocket serving European strategic needs, why would I be talking about USA?

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

#156

Post by [deleted] »

627467 wrote: post #139
pmontra wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will still be building that knowledge inside Europe. Rocketry in general is deemed to be strategic so it's OK for any country to invest money in that, keep scientists and engineers on the subject, keep the industries alive, etc. It's not only about access to space, it's also about defense.

will it? or will engineering talent just move elsewhere after realizing their talents are wasted in bureaucratland?

[deleted]

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

#157

Post by mauriciolange »

cabirum wrote: post #106

No mention of an engine failure and the last payload could not be delivered. It is now floating helplessly in orbit, effectively turned into space debris, endangering other projects.

There were no last payload to be delivered. The remaining payload was intended to deorbit along with the second stage.

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

#158

Post by jve »

MrSkelter wrote: post #47
nabla9 wrote: post #2

Ariane 6 exists so that European countries can get independent access to space between now and 2030s. The launch cost is almost 2x the cost of Falcon 9. Both platforms can lift 22t to LEO. 6-10 years from now Ariane Next/SALTO will aims replicate Falcon 9 efficiency and the design will be very similar: reusable, RP-1/LOX, Prometheus engine is similar reusable open cycle engine as Merlin with lots of 3D printed parts.

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…

> 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.

Elon in some interview was stating that Falcon architecture limits reusability to particular amount days so it is not _rapidly_ reusable in comparison to having Starship being catched by tower/reused rapidly. However mentioning merely days - that is surely pretty reusable and makes economical sense.

https://youtu.be/aFqjoCbZ4ik?si=pK-tptp0XbmOeoWN&t=432

> "... a couple days to get booster back. At least a few days to refurbish it for flight ..."

In practice, wiki mentions 21 days as fastest turnaround for a single booster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_b... - So that means bringing booster back with ship, refurbishing, putting on the new payload and launching again.

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

#159

Post by T-A »

snowpid wrote: post #86

In Germany there are 3 companies, I heard in France 2 companies, I don't any in other parts of Europe but there are definitely but I suppose the European rocket start up pipeline is filled. P. S. HN please tell me about your (European) nation's future rocket builder.

I still don't know how seriously to take it, but this one really stands out from the crowd:

https://www.sidereus.space/

https://europeanspaceflight.com/sidereus-space-dynamics-comp...

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

#160

Post by close04 »

londons_explore wrote: post #121
Xixi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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... I'm very surprised the EU and the USA and SpaceX didn't work out a deal to buy a certain number of F9's to be launched and operated from the EU. The EU would pay a (vey high) price to bu…

> The EU would pay a (vey high) price to buy outright the rockets, and would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs.

So the worst of both worlds? It would still be very expensive, but also dependent on a foreign entity and with hands tied for the next decades unable to develop people, skills, or products in that direction.

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