ESA delays first Ariane-6 launch to late in 2023
The European Space Agency has once again delayed the first Ariane-6 launch, shifting it to the fourth quarter of 2023.
Even so, officials warned that this is merely “a planned date,” and that static fire tests of both the first stage and second stage must first be completed before the launch can go forward.
Ariane-6 was initially supposed to begin launching in 2020, putting it three years behind schedule. Furthermore, it has struggled to obtain customers, as it is entirely expendable and thus expensive and not competitive with SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
Since Ariane-6 is delayed and the Ariane-5 rocket’s has only a few launches left before retirement, ESA officials also noted that it has now been forced to buy two launches from SpaceX.
The launches include the Euclid space telescope and the Hera probe, a follow-up mission to NASA’s DART spacecraft which last month succeeded in altering the path of a moonlet in the first test of a future planetary defence system. “The member states have decided that Euclid and Hera are proposed to be launched on Falcon 9,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told reporters after a meeting of the 22-nation agency’s ministerial council.
The launches will take place in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
The irony is that ESA is probably going to save a lot of money launching with the Falcon 9, rather than its own Ariane-6. In fact, I would not be surprised if the total SpaceX price for both launches equals one Ariane-6 launch. Furthermore, SpaceX gets this business because its own American competitors, ULA and Blue Origin, have also failed to get their new rockets flying on time.
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The European Space Agency has once again delayed the first Ariane-6 launch, shifting it to the fourth quarter of 2023.
Even so, officials warned that this is merely “a planned date,” and that static fire tests of both the first stage and second stage must first be completed before the launch can go forward.
Ariane-6 was initially supposed to begin launching in 2020, putting it three years behind schedule. Furthermore, it has struggled to obtain customers, as it is entirely expendable and thus expensive and not competitive with SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
Since Ariane-6 is delayed and the Ariane-5 rocket’s has only a few launches left before retirement, ESA officials also noted that it has now been forced to buy two launches from SpaceX.
The launches include the Euclid space telescope and the Hera probe, a follow-up mission to NASA’s DART spacecraft which last month succeeded in altering the path of a moonlet in the first test of a future planetary defence system. “The member states have decided that Euclid and Hera are proposed to be launched on Falcon 9,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told reporters after a meeting of the 22-nation agency’s ministerial council.
The launches will take place in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
The irony is that ESA is probably going to save a lot of money launching with the Falcon 9, rather than its own Ariane-6. In fact, I would not be surprised if the total SpaceX price for both launches equals one Ariane-6 launch. Furthermore, SpaceX gets this business because its own American competitors, ULA and Blue Origin, have also failed to get their new rockets flying on time.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
So am I correct to conclude that the non-reusable Ariane-6 will not substantially out-perform the venerable F9, since its intended initial payloads now will be launched by the F9? Why don’t they just shovel their taxpayers’ money into a hole in the ground?!
Per Elon, this is also the record of the most flights in one year by a booster type. (Soyuz-U did 47 in 1979).
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1583133885696987136
And we still have 10 or so launches to go in all likelyhood.
Elon could really tick some people off just by designing a competitor engine to the Blue Origin BE-4.
He could actually have it operational and ready for sale before BO does.
But that would put BO out of business and he might not want that yet.
pzatchok, I am in no position to either dispute or support your contention, but I would be interested in knowing more about your assumptions. Are there significantly simpler design features in the BE-4 compared to Raptor? Does SpaceX have a workforce with greater skills than BO? Honestly, I’d like to know how you reached this conclusion, which I do not necessarily disagree with – I just don’t know.
It has nothing to do with simpler or cheaper.
They obviously do not want to pay Space X to carry their payloads. For any price. What payload can’t a Falcon Heavy lift?
But since he is not ever going to sell his present engines to competitors he would need to make a new one.
A new engine that does exactly what the customer wants. Obviously the customer wants to use something throw away and bolts right into and replaces what they already have
The real reason is that the government politicians do not want to let any of his competitors go out of business. They need the jobs in their areas. Also with more companies in the mix the politicians get more chances at a better draw from the donation and gift basket.
Add in all the politicians who either have direct investments in or are invested in the finance companies who are financing the other launch companies.
How many invested in the drug companies a week before they were approved for the Covid vax and you had no idea?
Would somebody please pry the ESA’s eyes open and show them SLS?
Stop while you can, you’re wasting a ton, and what you make has no value.