Comments on: Faced with stiff competition in the launch market, Europe struggles to come up with a competitive replacement for Ariane 5 https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/faced-with-stiff-competition-in-the-launch-market-europe-struggles-to-come-up-with-a-competitive-replacement-for-ariane-5/ Wed, 17 Oct 2012 08:57:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Blair Ivey https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/faced-with-stiff-competition-in-the-launch-market-europe-struggles-to-come-up-with-a-competitive-replacement-for-ariane-5/#comment-67453 Wed, 17 Oct 2012 08:57:04 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=20315#comment-67453 If you just need to put mass in orbit, the differences between Falcon 9 and Ariane 5 are almost a wash: Falcon costs half as much but can only lift half as much as the Eurorocket. If you don’t need to put so much aloft, then Falcon is the better deal.

What the ESA knows is that Falcon Heavy will be the real game changer. With expected first flight in the next couple of years, and operational status maybe a couple of years after that, Heavy will be on the market at about the same time an Ariane 6 would be operational. That’s if the Europeans get their act together quickly, and no major development problems crop up. None of the people quoted in the article seems real optimistic about that.

If both programs come to fruition, the ESA is still going to have a couple of major problems: their launcher will be far outclassed in terms of lift capability to any orbit, and they’ll need at least six launches per year to stay solvent, whereas Space X estimates they can get by on four Heavy launches annually. Space X will have a couple of launchers to meet customer needs, where the ESA will only have one. Barring major flaws with the Falcon family, it may be that the Europeans have already been effectively shut out of the commercial launcher market.

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