ESA Ariane 6

Ah, the Soda Can comparison. Long time not seen that one.

Try this: put the soda can on a shallow wedge and try again ;)

Airstream is not parallel with the direction of flight or vehicle incidence.

iu
 
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Do you get many wedges in the air? All the forces are transmitted vertically through the cylinder which is held in compression from the wind resistance.
 
I am lucky. I get the wedge,
Angling on, on every pledge.
At the end of the runway, I pitch
and into that airstream, my wings cut some lift.
I soar, not slouch, beyond my 50ft.

My wings trail vortexes
Their airfoils with gravity play tricks
And I smile at those perplexed
that saw me dying at the apex,
Kutta was right, rejoice in the cockpit.

And I am not the one,
the bloodily level running one
that jump the fence to impale
the next pretty thing that crosses the lane.

Would you know now, pilots should not cut it
or rave in disbelief at the end of the strip?
Because old age and MILFs, my friend, shall be no dreams
Wedge, Wedge, into the nascent airstream.

'
Do not go level into that airstream, a (nearly) inspirational poem by Dylan Tomcat
 
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TomcatViP said:
a. there is already some padding. Ribs are not 40cm tall
you can see below that Alas has some

b. You don´t read. If it wobble at separation, it does probably so during flight, affecting aerodynamics and impacting the vehicle in structure and trim. Hence a direct impact on the overall efficiency.

c. Progress is improvement. Here a rigid fairing that won´t flex as much during separation is a step forward toward reusability. Hence efficiency. Not all fairing flex to that extend.
Click to expand...
a. Not relevant. Metallic fairing. By the way, it also flexes. Also, it had to be wider than an equivalent composite fairing to account for the ribs.
b. Wrong. I know it does not for a fact*. It does not "wobble" during flight. It only flexes due to ordnance charges for separation.
c. No, it is many times heavier and it uses latches and pistons. The new larger Falcon 9 fairing will use ordnance and won't be reusable. Most fairing do flex. Delta, Titan, Atlas, Ariane, Antares all flex.
And the Falcon fairing is flexing in that video.

* I was integration engineer for many Atlas missions and clearance analysis showed no "wobbling" and launch probability was not determined by the fairing. Actual vehicle bending of the stack of stages was main factor in launch probability. Even so much that some rockets had rate gyros placed on lower stages to account for the bending. But then again, there are few people knowledgable about these finer points of rocket science, especially operators of other aerovehicles.
 
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TomcatViP said:
Ah, the Soda Can comparison. Long time not seen that one.

Try this: put the soda can on a shallow wedge and try again ;)

Airstream is not parallel with the direction of flight or vehicle incidence.

iu
Click to expand...
Launch vehicles fly at low AOAs and are programmed to keep them to a minimum. And again, vehicle bending modes and controllability are more affected by winds aloft.
 
Fun tidbit from this
https://www.lefigaro.fr/societes/co...dre-pour-doubler-ses-cadences-de-vol-20240812

We learn that "some 6 launchers are currently in various stages of production"
We also get remembered that the current plan is for a launch - CSO-3 - this december, 6 in 2025, 8 in 2026 then a full cadence from 2027 onward.
So 7 more launches by the end of 2025.

But then we know that, according to Mr. Lier, CSG director, the first Ariane 6's production took 36 months, and that the goal is to reach 18 months to produce an Ariane 6 within the upcoming years.

https://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/la...ne-6-a-decolle-pour-la-premiere-fois-20240709

So, even assuming they directly hit their goal of 18 months per launcher, they can only have 6 launchers ready by the end of 2025 (16 months from now), so the current goal of 1+6=7 launches by then doesn't seem achievable .
 
A fairing is a lot like an egg.
Max Q is like trying to crush an egg lengthwise--tough to do.

Once blown free--who cares how limber it is?

Now for recovery it might need a tad more bracing I imagine.
 
Talking about Ariane 6 fairings...
Here's another consequence of the delays and contract cancellation, Beyond Gravity, which makes Ariane 6 fairings (and many others, Atlas,Vulcan, H3,Vega even SLS payload adapter) has apparently repurposed and sold Ariane 6 fairings to the American commercial launch provider Relativity Space for their upcoming Terran R reusable heavy launcher:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1828884728025678105
View: https://x.com/relativityspace/status/1828884728025678105

https://twitter.com/x/status/1828919478379258183
View: https://x.com/Astro_Danyboy/status/1828919478379258183

1724936807798.jpeg
They updated their website, making the fairing the size of A64's and removing the (wrongly labelled) comparison with Ariane 62's fairing

1724937270016.png
Another customer for Beyond gravity.
 
I would be curious to know how this was articulated financially.

And for those, like me, that are lost with all those new company names, Beyond Gravity is just a rebranding of RUAG Space.
 
Stéphane Israël president of Arianespace declare:
Translation from French :
Our topic is not to do what Mr. Musk does.
Yesterday, for example, Musk sent a billionaire into space with a commercial flight.
What does that say to us?
It doesn't mean we need to do the same. Space should be for everyone."
Click to expand...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EoAHdwGBvU


Numbers of Humans launch by Arianespace Rockets: ZERO
ESA must used Shuttle, Soyuz capsule and SpaceX Crew Dragon to get in Space...
in mean time SpaceX is taking over Arianespace Clients, because cheaper and every 3 day a Falcon 9 launch
in mean time Arianespace has only two Ariane 6 launch in 2024 and 4 for 2026 and 6~7 for 2027
SpaceX launch around 100 rocket per year (yes mostly Starlinks)

Source:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1833755490729202007
View: https://twitter.com/bfmbusiness/status/1833755490729202007
 
Well the ESA could be launching their own astronauts if the ESA's management hadn't shortsightedly cancelled the Hermes spaceplane (The original reason for the Ariane 5) in 1993.
 
I wonder what could have been NMaude had the Hermes spaceplane had not been cancled? We could have been delivering our own astronauts to the ISS by now if things had been different.
 
FighterJock said:
I wonder what could have been NMaude had the Hermes spaceplane had not been cancled?
Click to expand...

The ESA would have its' own dedicated astronaut-corp and it's very likely that NASA and the ESA wouldn't need to use Roscosmos's Soyuz spacecraft (It's quite clear that Roscosmos has been ripping off NASA and ESA in how much it charges for rides on a Soyuz, it initially cost $US20 million/seat but is now something like 2.5-3 times that).
 
NMaude said:
Well the ESA could be launching their own astronauts if the ESA's management hadn't shortsightedly cancelled the Hermes spaceplane (The original reason for the Ariane 5) in 1993.
Click to expand...
Hermes had allot technical and financial problems
it was to heavy, issue with safety, missing needed funding.
since 1993 every attempt for European Manned Space craft was dismiss by responsible European ministers.
special the Germans under conservative Government of Kohl and Merkel, play important role in this disaster...
 
Michel Van said:
since 1993 every attempt for European Manned Space craft was dismiss by responsible European ministers.
special the Germans under conservative Government of Kohl and Merkel, play important role in this disaster...
Click to expand...

So basically the root of Hermes problems was basically shortsighted political stupidity by German politicians who should've known better? Idiots!
 
TomcatViP said:
Seems Ariane CEO is experimenting with the RDE: Bracing wind and revolving around Shocks arguments.
ULA is LM and Boeing.

Ariane is a public project. Relativity Space is an US Startup.

There is a significant difference.
Click to expand...
No difference.
a. A company, Beyond Gravity (RUAG), produces the fairings
b. Ariane 6 was developed with public money but it operates with commercial money. Arianespace buys fairings from Beyond Gravity
C. The fairings were used by Altas V (LM) before ULA was formed.
D. Relativity Space and ULA are no different as far as being US companies.
 
I don´t think that's simple. Arianespace issues a bill to the ESA that valid the purchase.
The fairing is produced but belong to the ESA.
The IP rights are owned by Arianespace and, probably the ESA that paid for the development.
The fairing is billed by RUAG to Arianespace
It´s a customized item with IP rights belongings to both companies, their subsidiary and ESA.
That it can be resold to that US Startup would means that ESA agreed for the handover. But why? what are the basis for this?

Otherwise, Arianespace would have had to "bought" it back at a premium (no sale can be made for free and R&D is big part of it) or sold it while it hadn´t been billed to the ESA. Something that would be weird and still left the question of IP and R&D cost unanswered

In the case of ULA, it´s only a sale b/w one partner to the other, just like any other part/products. Relativity Space is not part of Ariane Group. It can not use products specifically developed without some form of agreements that, as I said, would be quite interesting to be shared publicly. Invariably, someone is going to ask the question...
 
Relatively good news: The investigation for the Ariane 6 Inaugural launch anomaly concluded that there's no roadblock for the next launch, and that the corrective action for the APU restart failure is a software change for the APU startup procedure, this fix is being tested and will be implemented in the upcoming launches.

europeanspaceflight.com

Investigation Identifies Cause of Ariane 6 APU Anomaly

The Ariane 6 Task Force has identified the root cause of the APU anomaly experience during the rocket’s maiden flight.
europeanspaceflight.com europeanspaceflight.com

Ahh... Ariane inaugural launches issues caused by software problems...
 
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Let's say it loud: it was a pretty dumbarse move to borrow Ariane 4 guidance system for Ariane 5, just to save a few thousands pennies. In the end the failure far outweighed the cost savings...
 
Obviously Arianespace thought that the Ariane 4 guidance system was good enough for the time Archibald.
 

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