ESA Ariane 6

Bit late for that paradigm shift - in the age of SpaceX, Ariane 6 should already have incorporated reusability. But at least this might be an opportunity to boot those wretched solid booster peddlers out of the European launch industry for good.
 
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Flyaway said:
I find it amazing that Airbus are looking for government hand outs when they have plenty of money to hand themselves.
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Why is that amazing? The prime objective of business is to maximise money under its control and ownership by any legal (yes, I'm a tad optimistic here) means available.
 
spacenews.com

Ariane 6 completes long-duration static-fire test

The European Space Agency conducted a long-duration firing of an Ariane 6 prototype Nov. 23, one of the final tests before the agency is ready to set a date for the rocket’s inaugural launch.
spacenews.com spacenews.com

The long duration Ariane 6 static fire was a success (it fired for 434 seconds, out of a minimum of 250 seconds and a maximum of 470 seconds), the teams are reviewing the data, a press conference will be held on November 30.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1728023022102024477
View: https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1728023022102024477


According to Kourou workers, they are currently aiming for a late April maiden launch, followed by a November 2024 first operational launch of the CSO 3 satellites
 
Looks like things are looking better for Ariane 6 now that the engine tests have been a success, all we need to do now is to wait and see when the first launch will be and that will depend on whether the review of the data reveals no issues.
 
FighterJock said:
Looks like things are looking better for Ariane 6 now that the engine tests have been a success, all we need to do now is to wait and see when the first launch will be and that will depend on whether the review of the data reveals no issues.
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Still think that Ariane 6 isn’t a long term launcher solution for Europe.
 
You might be right about that Flyaway about Ariane 6 I think that Ariane 6 is a short term solution until they design Ariane 7. What Europe actually needs is a Ariane rocket and manned capsule to go to the Moon in the long term.
 
Ariane 6 will probably have the best first 5 years of any Ariane/European launchers, followed by the worst 5 years of any Arianes, and then a replacement in the mid to late 30s
 
Late 2030s for a Ariane 6 replacement TheKutKu? I would think it would be sooner than that quite possibly around the 2030 time frame I also think that Arianespace would like to forget about the problems with Ariane 6 as soon as possible.
 
FighterJock said:
Late 2030s for a Ariane 6 replacement TheKutKu? I would think it would be sooner than that quite possibly around the 2030 time frame I also think that Arianespace would like to forget about the problems with Ariane 6 as soon as possible.
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www.lesechos.fr

L'Europe sauve l'avenir d'Ariane 6 contre l'ouverture à la concurrence

A Séville, les Etats membres de l'Agence spatiale européenne ont accepté de financer davantage Ariane 6, en échange d'une ouverture à la compétition du marché des lancements à l'horizon 2025.
www.lesechos.fr www.lesechos.fr

"“I hope that the candidates will gradually come together, it would be a shame to only have a competition between nations, while the market is narrow,” notes Toni Tolker-Nielsen, director of space transport at ESA. Beyond that, a new competition will be launched, probably in 2028, for the successor to Ariane 6. “Which suggests competition for Ariane 6 by 2035,” adds Toni Tolker-Nielsen."
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That logic looks sound to me. The 2025 small launcher competition can't be followed too soon after by a large launcher competition.

CNES and Arianegroup also have been aiming for either 2035 or "2030s decade" for "Ariane Next" recently, ESA has the PROTEIN study which assumes a 2035 new launcher...

and a 2035 goal for a new operational launcher stated in 2023 can easily become a more general-2nd half of the 2030s...

European small launchers will gradually launch in the next 5 years, scaling up to medium or heavy lift has been proven to be hard for nearly everybody in USA and China, and Europe has less funding, less policy coherence, lesser internal payload markets, less advanced rocket propulsion technologies and less testing sites than USA and China. It won't be easy..

An "European Space pioneer/天兵科技", aka a new player that appears out of nowhere, gets a billion of funding and makes a medium launcher using preexisting engines in a couple to a few years isn't possible here.
 
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Ariane 6 joint update report, 30 November 2023

The Ariane 6 Launcher Task Force consists of top management of ESA, as the overall Ariane 6 procuring entity and launch system architect, of the French space agency CNES, as the launch base prime contractor, of ArianeGroup as the launcher system prime contractor and of Arianespace as the launch...
www.esa.int

Ariane 6 first launch now has a window: 15 June to 31 July 2024
 
Things are looking better for Ariane 6 TheKutKu. Getting launched 15 June to 31 July 2024, I take it that the data collected for the engine test turned out to be okay now that Arianespace have now selected possible launch dates for next summer.
 
Ariane 6 maiden launch is now NLT 23rd July 2024.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1731256922257363393
View: https://twitter.com/SpaceVoyaging/status/1731256922257363393

Space Voyaging @SpaceVoyaging
During a press briefing held on Nov. 30 @esa , @ArianeGroup and @CNES analyzed the recent Ariane 6 milestones and future developments. The new European rocket is now set to liftoff between June 15 and July 23, 2024. Find out more in our Blog article:
www.spacevoyaging.com

Exciting News for Ariane 6 as ESA Prepares First Launch | Space Voyaging

During a media briefing held on November 30, key figures in the Ariane 6 project described recent and future milestones, and the first official launch window
www.spacevoyaging.com www.spacevoyaging.com
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I think Europe is going pragmatic. They know Ariane 6 will be no match to Falcon 9R, and that reusability is half a decade or more in the future. As an interim step, they accept / tolerate (if not encourage) a proliferation of rocket startups with light and medium launch vehicles. More innovative and hopefully a bit more cost competitive with SpaceX. In a few words: Arianespace absolute dominance of Europe launch market is gone and buried.
 
Archibald said:
I think Europe is going pragmatic. They know Ariane 6 will be no match to Falcon 9R, and that reusability is half a decade or more in the future. As an interim step, they accept / tolerate (if not encourage) a proliferation of rocket startups with light and medium launch vehicles. More innovative and hopefully a bit more cost competitive with SpaceX. In a few words: Arianespace absolute dominance of Europe launch market is gone and buried.
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I wish it was medium, but it’s really not, nearly all the launchers in development in Europe are small launchers, with only the unannounced RFA one Max and the self-admittedly sandbagged Maiaspace potentially reaching into the lower end (aka between Vega and Vega C) of medium launchers,

And nearly all of these launchers use a clustering of <=100 kN engines, so a jump to even a truly medium LV will require completely new engines. And likely new test facilities (which are severly limited in continental europe outside of AG's) and maybe launch sites.

The upcoming european small launchers will not be profitable by themselves, let's hope there will be investments and ESA funding into these companies to make the transition from small to medium/heavy lift possible.


FighterJock said:
And if that is the case Archibald, Arianespace has only got themselves to blame. Taking far too long to get Ariane 6 designed, built and launched.
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Arianespace did not have nearly as much design influence on Ariane 6 as they had on previous Arianes, nor did they have anything with building them.
 
FighterJock said:
And if that is the case Archibald, Arianespace has only got themselves to blame. Taking far too long to get Ariane 6 designed, built and launched.
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The Ariane 5 should've stayed in production till the Ariane 6 had successfully flown several flights.
 
ArianeSpace has to face reality.
Ariane 5 & Vega-A are gone, Ariane 6 not yet Ready and Vega-C program is disaster and Russia never coming back to CSG.
i remember that years ago, some one of ArianeSpace babble about European small launchers can't survive.

Now they need urging a European Small launcher as alternative for Vega, and allot Europa companies building a launcher.
Otherwise they loose customer to RocketLab, Firefly and SpaceX, in fact Irland first satellite was launch on Falcon 9.

Is that not ironic ?

Now it will be allot failure and bankruptcy under European small launchers.
But the survivor will get launch site at CGS, or build own launch site else were.
With option to build larger launcher for medium payloads (replace Soyuz).
and if they manage to build it reusable, before ArianeSpace get there ready in 2030s...
 
You are right NMaude, I saw no point in getting rid of Ariane 5 going out of production before Ariane 6 was ready the two should have been operated together before Arianspace had enough Ariane 6 launchers ready to go and then replaced Ariane 5. I also think that Ariane 5 will be a hard act to follow.
 
nice infographic
what ArianeSpace face as European competitors
most of them will fail, the survivors will prosper
(source X)
GBsWymFWkAA7cxe
 
There will only be a few rocket companies left if that is the case, I thought it was bad enough when Virgin Orbit went down but it could get a whole lot worse. It is the old Darwinian scenario again only the strong survive.
 
Shipment of the rocket stages for the inaugural flight of Ariane 6 has begun - Canopée is underway...

CANOPEE, Ro-Ro Cargo Ship - Details and current position - IMO 9924120 - VesselFinder

Vessel CANOPEE (IMO 9924120, MMSI 228438700) is a Ro-Ro Cargo Ship built in 2022 and currently sailing under the flag of France.
www.vesselfinder.com www.vesselfinder.com
The current position of CANOPEE is at North East Atlantic Ocean reported 1 min ago by AIS. The vessel is en route to FRBDX, sailing at a speed of 12.0 knots and expected to arrive there on Jan 27, 17:00.
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europeanspaceflight.com

ArianeGroup Prepare to Ship Ariane 6 Flight Hardware to Kourou - European Spaceflight

ArianeGroup is preparing to ship the Ariane 6 core stage and upper stage for the vehicle’s maiden flight to the launch site in French Guiana.
europeanspaceflight.com europeanspaceflight.com
ArianeGroup Prepare to Ship Ariane 6 Flight Hardware to Kourou

ArianeGroup is preparing to ship the Ariane 6 core stage and upper stage that will be used for the vehicle’s first flight towards the middle of this year to the launch site in French Guiana. Although the development of Ariane 6 has been hit with several years of delays, ESA and ArianeGroup are on the final stretch to the vehicle’s maiden launch.

According to a 17 January ESA press call, journalists will be given one last look at the upper stage in Bremen, Germany, on 26 January and the core stage in Les Mureaux, France, on 30 January. Once the pomp and circumstance have been completed, the two Ariane 6 stages will be loaded onto the transport vessel Canopée for its 10-day transatlantic crossing to the port of Pariacabo in French Guiana.

The 121-metre Ariane 6 transport ship is fitted with four rigid sails that each measure 37 metres in height. The sails will supplement two diesel engines while also enabling the vessel to reduce its fuel consumption and, thus, its carbon footprint. Canopée is capable of traveling up to 17 knots, or around 31 km/h.

Typically, Canopée would have five stops before embarking on its journey to French Guiana. Its first stop would be Bremen in Germany, where it would collect the Ariane 6 upper stage. It would collect the rocket’s fairing halves from Rotterdam in The Netherlands. Then, it would be on to Le Havre, France, for the core stage. Finally, it would make one last stop in Bordeaux, France, for solid propulsion elements. For this voyage, however, Canopée will not need to make as many stops.

Beyond Gravity, the company responsible for the rocket’s fairing, announced on 6 October 2023 that it was preparing to ship the fairing halves for the maiden flight aboard its own transport ship. On 17 October, EUROPROPULSION, a joint venture owned by ArianeGroup and Avio, announced that it had delivered the first of two P120C boosters for the flight. The company hasn’t yet announced anything about the second booster, but integration activities are likely currently taking place in French Guiana.

The core and upper stages are expected to arrive in French Guiana in mid-February, after which integration activities can commence. The maiden flight of Ariane 6 is currently expected to take place between 15 June and 31 July. While preparations do appear to be continuing smoothly, ArianeGroup has still not announced the results of its investigation into why an Ariane 6 upper stage test conducted on 7 December was aborted early.
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[/quote]
 
Something to look forward too, my only wish is that the first flight goes well and does not end up being another Ariane 5. But you can never tell with new rockets.
 
FighterJock said:
Something to look forward too, my only wish is that the first flight goes well and does not end up being another Ariane 5. But you can never tell with new rockets.
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The disaster with the first Ariane 5 launch was entirely avoidable as it was caused by the excessive reuse of Ariane 4 flight-software which couldn't handle the massive performance increase of the Ariane 5.
 
Thanks for that NMaude, I did not know that the Ariane 5 was using Ariane 4 flight-software. That is rather eye opening.
 
according Scott Manley
has Portugal passt law to allow the construction and operations of rocket launch pads on Portugal territory.

from mainland Portugal into polar orbit, from Portuguese Islands Azores into standard orbits
 
Michel Van said:
according Scott Manley
has Portugal passt law to allow the construction and operations of rocket launch pads on Portugal territory.

from mainland Portugal into polar orbit, from Portuguese Islands Azores into standard orbits
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Wouldn't this dump spent stages on Greenland ? or worse, on Iceland ? (although it is a rather small "target")

As for Azores : same story with Africa, no ?
 

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