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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

#181

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.

The plan was for the last payloads to separate from second stage and deorbit along with it. That was the delivery.

  35:13
  end of this the upper stage will flip in space and restart the Vinci engine to 
  break and set itself on a collision
  35:19
  course with Earth burning up in our atmosphere and limiting space debris but   
  before it touches atmosphere two
  35:26
  capsules are set to detach and had on their own mission to survive the extreme     
  temperatures of the re-entry and all
  35:32
  three elements will then splash down in the Pacific Ocean far away from 
  civilization this will end our mission
  [0]

  [...]

  4:42:58
  according to this new situation which means that the Vinci engine decided not
  4:43:04
  to restart because there was no ipu uh operating so he was not in a good 
  condition to restart and so there was a
  4:43:12
  passivation of the upper stage which was triggered in order to make it an object
  4:43:18
  which does not create um dangers of debris and the passivation works
  4:43:25
  perfectly according to plan uh and also it was the the launcher system decided
  4:43:32
  automatically not to to release the two capsules the two passengers because it
  4:43:39
  would have created additional debr and so uh we have an event which is not
  4:43:44
  understood yet which is why did the Apu stop but all the rest of the mission was
  [1]
0. https://youtu.be/B0oFpOJaIYc?t=2113

1. https://youtu.be/B0oFpOJaIYc?t=16978

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

#182
post #100

I guess something is better than nothing. But it's a shame to be launching something that seems obsolete from the start

It's not obsolete if it works and there's people paying for it. Most space rockets are decades old tech, calling it obsolete seems pointless.

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

#183
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>True, but the EU has tight rules about government subsidies (TFEU art. 107-109) which don't have equivalent in the US. ESA member states contributed €2.815 billion for the development of Ariane 6. Industry contributed €400 million. Additionally, the member states have agreed to subsidize the Ariane 6 to the tune of €340 million annually.

Where does SpaceX get its development funding from?

They've had multiple private VC rounds. They also have had several milestone based development contracts from the government to develop capabilities (iss cargo and crew mainly) while charging the government less to do that dev work then their competitors bid.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So the entire world should rather be dependent on SpaceX, and be done with it? Arianespace had the lead and lost it, because it kept the old way of doing things. Or are you arguing Ariane 5 was technically behind and wasn't competitive in the '00s? Ariane 6 is not that far behind the other "old space" companies, which the US is struggling to keep around as alternatives to SpaceX. It's not like Boeing and ULA are doin…

> the entire world should rather be dependent on SpaceX, and be done with it?

No, compete. There is a menagerie of European space start-ups starved of oxygen by ArianeSpace.

Arianespace is Europe’s ULA. Europe with Ariane 6 is about as dependent on SpaceX as Europe without. The difference is whether it will continue to be dependent on SpaceX. Every euro that goes to Arianespace cements SpaceX’s global dominance.

> Arianespace had the lead and lost it

When was Arianespace in the lead?

> Ariane 6 is not that far behind the other "old space" companies

Granted. Not a great show for €5bn.

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

#185
Previous livestream submission, just 16 hours earlier than this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40918284

Top comment from above submission:

  mrtksn 18 hours ago
  IIUC this is one of those projects that the governments fund when the free market solution doesn't exist.
  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.

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

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> SpaceX is a 100% American company. It's a huge fucking problem if you're not American. If you don't want to be subject to American law. If you don't want your technology inspected or tampered with by Americans. If you don't want the transaction to be in dollars (extra-territoriality of US law on all dollar transactions). If you don't want to deal with the problem of American citizens and companies subject to FISA,…

[flagged]

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

#187

[flagged]

[flagged]

Ariane is a series of European civilian expendable launch vehicles for space launch use. The name comes from the French spelling of the mythological character Ariadne. France first proposed the Ariane project and it was officially agreed upon at the end of 1973 after discussions between France, Germany and the UK. [0]

In Greek mythology, Ariadne (/ˌæriˈædni/; Greek: Ἀριάδνη; Latin: Ariadne) was a Cretan princess, the daughter of King Minos of Crete. . . .Linguist Robert S. P. Beekes has also supported Ariadne having a pre-Greek origin; specifically being Minoan from Crete because her name includes the sequence dn (δν), rare in Indo-European languages and an indication that it is a Minoan loanword. [1]

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_(rocket_family)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne

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

#188
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…

Having followed the launch industry for 30 years, I can safely tell you that this is the exact line that every competitor (save RocketLabs and the startups fueled by the SpaceX diaspora of engineers) says whenever they are trying to justify their legacy wasteful rockets. Even Rocketlab's CEO had to "eat his hat" when he finally realized that the cost difference was real, that reusability was here to stay, and they had to develop a direct competitor to SpaceX.

SpaceX provides a per-seat, per-launch cost, not a direct government subsidy - That would be ULA. ULA was literally a direct mechanism for transferring tax revenue to large multi-national defense companies to procure "independent access to space" (sound familiar?).

They do use (and pay for and lease) NASA and Air Force facilities - but in America, airports are government institutions as well, that are explicitly leased out to airlines. Reuse of NASA's unused resources, rather than destroying them (or paying for the upkeep) after the shuttle program, was an explicit political decision.

So why isn't SpaceX cheaper? They have kept prices high (but still lower than everyone else) to help fund Starlink. The fact that they can do so is reflective of Falcon's costs.

Reusability is real. Ariane 6 is nothing more then the ULAification of Arianespace.

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

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is still essential that we have multiple actors building rockets. The competition Twice the cost and at a small fraction of the frequency is competition in the way a rubber duck competes with a battle ship. Ariana 6 isn’t meaningful competition. ArianeSpace’s sole value is in its potential of becoming competition if one day sensibly managed.

Arianne 6 is not about competition, but about strategic independence at the first place.

> Arianne 6 is not about competition, but about strategic independence at the first place

That’s what the Starliner folks said. The fault in their argument was ignoring scale effects.

Ariane 6 buys Europe zero practical launch independence, other than maintaining the workforce (and accompanying skill set). If SpaceX blocks Europe, it’s game over for any constellation operator and, in all likelihood, the European commercial space sector.

Ariane 6 hopes to do 10 launches per year by 2030. That’s a few weeks’ Falcon 9s today. Each Ariane 6 launch requires subsidies to be competitive, and that’s assuming Arianespace’s forecasts hold. (They haven’t.) Every one of those euros could be used, instead, on R&D.

Ariane 6 uses cryogenic fuel. It has no landing system, mass-manufacturing site or refurbishment elements. That means that none of the foundational technologies for reusable launch are being worked on. (Ariane 5E would have been a strategic hedge. But Paris wouldn’t have it.)

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

#190

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…

Having followed the launch industry for 30 years, I can safely tell you that this is the exact line that every competitor (save RocketLabs and the startups fueled by the SpaceX diaspora of engineers) says whenever they are trying to justify their legacy wasteful rockets. Even Rocketlab's CEO had to "eat his hat" when he finally realized that the cost difference was real, that reusability was here to stay, and they ha…

Given that ULA historically purchased engines from Russia, are you suggesting that it was a direct mechanism for transferring tax revenue to Russia companies?
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