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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

#171

Post by Propelloni »

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…

Why? That would be a bad deal for ESA. Instead of being behind 10 years with a fighting chance to catch-up, they would be 20 years behind and dependent on one, maybe two unreliable partners (Musk and maybe the USA under Trump).

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

#172

Post by 627467 »

szundi wrote: post #6
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #4

I’m happy it exists but it’s incredibly disappointing how non competitive it is. There was a lot of hubris in the project in the beginning and now it’s clear that they are years behind. Which in turn makes future funding a challenge I’m sure. I really hope they don’t give up and manage become more ambitious.

Funding hard to lose when the end result is needed and is a strategic objective. Not funding it would make the EU depend on others and knowledge would be lost. Interesting to think about a way how these perfectly connected people could be exchanged to some new, pragmatic generation.

knowledge is preserved by having more people have it and build upon it. subsidizing decaying incumbents is not an effective way to preserve knowledge

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

#173

Post by qwytw »

Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #35
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.

ESA and Ariane Group are two very different things. Ariane Group's main investor is the French state (61%). The French state wants a high-powered solid rocket booster for its ICBMs, and a sovereign and reliable means of launching large intelligence satellites. It couldn't care less about reusability. ESA is the equivalent of NASA and has no commercial activity, but subsidizes part of the Ariane program. Ariane group…

> Ariane Group's main investor is the French state (61%)

Isn't Ariane Group jointly owned by Airbus and Safran? Which are both publicly traded companies and France only has a ~10% stake in both?

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

#174

Post by sandworm101 »

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…

There is more to SpaceX than just cost comparisons. SpaceX is a US company, meaning anyone wanting on the rocket has to submit to a host of space-related regulations and US national security policies. Some launches don't want to, or cannot, deal with such oversight. A doubling of launch costs seems huge, but operating satellites isn't cheap. Many launches may prefer the premium price if it means launching on a European rocket.

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

#175

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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.

It may be 2x the cost of Falcon 9, but it's a different use case and volume (~10 per year for Ariane, ~100 for Falcon 9); Ariane 6 would not be cheaper at those volumes if it was reusable.

Also keep in mind that most of Falcon's use is for SpaceX itself, 2/3rds of launches are for Starlink.

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

#176

Post by cabirum »

mauriciolange wrote: post #157
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.

"but the mission ended with the launcher coasting in orbit without releasing its final batch of payloads.", Reuters[1].

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/europes-ariane-6-ro...

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

#177

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #108
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…

>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?

NASA is a government agency though, so it doesn't have profit generation as its target. And that's fine, neither does the US army or any other government branch except for the tax office.

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

#178

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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…

Would that even be possible? SpaceX would need to either provide intense training (engineering, operating, etc) for their rockets, or to provide the staff and facilities themselves; basically the company would need to double its staff (if not more) to support a scheme like that.

I mean it makes sense, why not sell off rockets and whatnot commercially like the mass production strategy that Musk has in mind? But I don't think there's enough launches yet to warrant that. In fact, SpaceX is booked full for the next few years already; unless that's intentional, they simply don't have the production capacity to humour that idea.

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

#179

Post by perihelions »

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?

Yes: one of the US national security launch vehicles, Atlas V, uses imported Russian main engines. US defense access to space was dependent on Russia for much of the 21st century (after the retirement of the Titan rockets).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Space_Launch...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30542226 ("Russia halts deliveries of rocket engines to the U.S. (reuters.com)")

(It's not a national security payload, but the Starliner ISS astronauts also went up on this Russian engine).

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

#180

Post by Cthulhu_ »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #150
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

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.

And also, SpaceX is booked full for years; there is plenty of space for competition even if it costs more.
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