Europe might be without independent access to space satellites until at the least 2024.
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the CEO of France-based company Arianespace confirmed on Tuesday (Aug. 8) that the inaugural launch of the brand new Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket will slip into 2024.
Ariane 6 was initially planned to start flying in 2020 and ramp up its cadence to switch the older Ariane 5 rocket seamlessly.
Nonetheless, Ariane 6 has suffered a series of delays, brought on by technical issues, COVID-19 and design changes, based on Reuters, while the Ariane 5 flew its 117th and final mission in early July.
Moreover the failure of the Vega-C rocket in December last 12 months leaves that rocket grounded, meaning Europe currently has no independent access to orbit. The European Commission earlier this 12 months drafted a request for an “ad-hoc security agreement” to permit some European payloads to fly on SpaceX rockets.
When exactly Ariane 6 will fly for the primary time continues to be unclear. A press briefing with the Ariane 6 Launcher Task Force is scheduled for Sep. 4 to supply an update on the launcher, ESA announced on Tuesday.
Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël tweeted a timeline on Tuesday laying out the subsequent steps for Ariane 6 testing ahead of an inaugural flight in 2024.
Israël said the taskforce will “organize an in depth briefing after the long hot-firing test of 26 September, once we may also find a way to supply a more precise launch period for 2024.”
[1/5] Here below please find the updated schedule for #Ariane6 development. With this, @ESA, @ArianeGroup, @Arianespace and @CNES confirm that the inaugural launch is now targeted for 2024. 👉https://t.co/iQxSkDWCOcAugust 8, 2023
The Ariane 6 Launcher Task Force consists of top management of ESA, the French space agency CNES (the launch base prime contractor), the launcher system prime contractor ArianeGroup, and launch service provider Arianespace.
Despite its development woes, Ariane 6 has a lot of institutional launches to perform, and it has been attracting business contracts, including 18 launches for Amazon’s Kuiper broadband megaconstellation project.