![A pathfinder version of the Ariane 6 rocket is seen at launch facilities in Kourou, French Guiana.](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/FfRwLxaX0AAHVze-800x533.jpg)
European Space Agency
European space officials will convene on Monday and Tuesday to debate the long run of space policy for the continent. The “Space Summit” gathering in Seville, Spain, will encompass several topics, including the long run of launch.
“Seville might be a really decisive moment for space in Europe,” said the director general of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, on the eve of the summit. “On launchers, and on exploration, I expect ministers to actually make very daring decisions. I definitely expect a paradigm shift on the launcher sector.”
Aschbacher has previously described Europe’s rocket predicament—the venerable Ariane 5 has retired, its substitute, Ariane 6, isn’t ready, and the smaller Vega C rocket can also be having teething problems—as an acute crisis. Now, it’s possible this crisis will result in the breakup of a decades-long partnership in Europe, led by the nations of France, Germany, and Italy, to collaborate on the event of launch capabilities.
Back to its roots
The source of this crisis goes back a couple of decade, when Europe was trying to find out what would come after the Ariane 5. That rocket was largely successful and provided Europe with its assured access to space. Nevertheless, it was costly, and already it was losing industrial business to emerging competitors like SpaceX and its Falcon 9 booster.
The pinnacle of the German Aerospace Agency on the time, Jan Wörner, who would later lead the European Space Agency from 2015 to 2021, explained in an interview with Ars the decisionmaking involved in moving on from the Ariane 5. Germany, he said, pushed for a midlife evolution of the Ariane 5, modernizing elements of the rocket and bringing down its cost. This faster solution would buy the continent time to see whether the Falcon 9 was successful and consider whether the continent’s next rocket must have a more radical upgrade.
In contrast, French officials preferred developing a completely recent but expendable rocket then, the Ariane 6. As a compromise in 2014, the chairman of Airbus, Tom Enders, emerged with an “industry” solution to construct the Ariane 6 rocket. It could be a modernized version of the Ariane 5, and since industry would take the lead, it will be more economical—50 percent cheaper than the Ariane 5 rocket.
As a part of this compromise, Wörner said, Germany would develop the rocket’s upper stage, the solid boosters can be developed by Italy, and the primary stage in France. And so the European space powers remained bonded together.
The crisis comes
In the last decade since this agreement was reached there have been no less than three aspects which have precipitated a crisis in European launch. One is the rise of SpaceX, which, through its reusable Falcon 9 rocket, has come to dominate the industrial market with prices about half those offered by the Ariane rockets. Since it has optimized for speed, SpaceX also can launch much more continuously and efficiently than Europe.
Secondly, the Ariane 6 rocket has been delayed from its original goal of launching in 2020. Now, if hot-fire tests late this 12 months go well, it is feasible that the Ariane 6 rocket could make its debut launch by mid-2024, or about 4 years late. With the retirement of the Ariane 5, and the Russian Soyuz rocket off the market on account of the war in Ukraine, Europe finds itself within the embarrassing position of getting to depend on SpaceX to get a few of its most dear missions into orbit.
Finally, there may be the price issue. The goal of reducing operations costs by 50 percent has dropped to 40 percent. And now, citing inflation, European officials say those cost cuts usually are not sustainable. In reality, the Ariane 6 rocket’s primary contractor, ArianeGroup—which is co-owned by Airbus and Safran—is asking for a major subsidy to operate the rocket. It wants 350 million euros a 12 months, which might essentially wipe out any cost savings from going to the Ariane 6 rocket.
So Europe has spent a decade and plenty of billions of euros developing the Ariane 6 rocket, but all it has gotten them up to now is a spot in the aptitude of launching satellites to orbit. This has ratcheted up tensions heading into Seville this week.