2024-07-08 03:15:08
Can Europe, lost for nine months, find its way back into space? Reply on Tuesday, July 9. That’s 8 pm in Paris and 3 pm in Kourou. The Guiana Space Centre will then have a three-hour launch window to launch a new Ariane 6 rocket.
As a result, the program launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in December 2014 was completed four years late. The question then was how to respond to the onslaught of Elon Musk, who, together with SpaceX, cut launch prices by more than 40% to around $60 million (€55 million). The new entrant ended the Euro-Russian duopoly formed by Ariane and Proton by changing the fundamentals of the market: instead of offering high prices on the grounds of flight safety, the American billionaire offered “low-cost” missions with his Falcon 9 rockets. It was a success, as it quickly established itself on the launcher market.
The Europeans gave themselves six years to develop the Ariane-6, more flexible in use and, above all, half the cost of the Ariane-5, in order to compete with the powerful American rival. The first flight was planned for July 21, 2020, the anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. However, this date was quickly ruled out due to the first technical setbacks. The Covid-19 pandemic made the situation even worse in 2020, and a new deadline was set for the end of 2021, which was also postponed by a few months.
However, in the spring of 2022, other difficulties led to a change in the calendar. All this took place once morest the backdrop of strained relations between France and Germany, the two main funders of the project, with shares of 55.3% and 22% respectively. Berlin blamed Paris for the deviations in planning and costs. A financial agreement was finally reached during the ESA summit in Seville, Spain, on November 6-7, 2023, in which countries pledged to reserve four flights per year for their agencies, military or science, to ensure the sustainability of the launcher. Ariane 6 should perform 10 flights per year.
‘Very high confidence’
Due to these consecutive delays, the folding schedule between the last flight of Ariane 5 and the first flight of Ariane 6 might not be carried out, resulting in Europe losing a year of heavy launchers. As for the smaller Vega rocket, its last launch was in October 2023, and plans for the next model, Vega-C, were suspended due to an in-flight failure. Since then, Europe has found itself without access to space.
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