More delays for first test hops of Europe’s Themis reusable first stage
Par for the course: The first test hops of Europe’s Themis demonstrator reusable first stage, first proposed in 2018, have now been delayed until 2025.
In a May 2024 presentation given at the International Civil Aviation Organization offices in Paris, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) announced that initial Themis hop tests would only begin next year. SSC is in charge of the operation of Esrange Space Centre in Sweden, where these initial tests of an integrated Themis demonstrator will begin. Once ArianeGroup moves onto higher altitude flights, the testing will be moved to the Guiana Space Centre.
The demonstrator itself is being built by a partnership of the private company ArianeGroup (Airbus and Safran) and the French space agency CNES, and was originallly supposed to begin test hops in 2022. These delays are typical of European government-run space operations. Note too that this is not a usable first stage, merely a demonstrator. For it to become operational it will have to be rebuilt.
None of this should be a surprise, since the man who runs Arianespace and is likely a key player in all this work, Stephan Israel, said in 2023 this stage would not become operational until the 2030s. Israel has been hostile to reusability from day one, and apparently is having some influence in slowing or blocking this development.
By the time this reusable first stage flies, it will be entirely obsolete and an utter waste of money, at least from a business and profit point of view. It will however have served these bankrupt companies and space agencies well as an empty jobs program, accomplishing little but make-work.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
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Par for the course: The first test hops of Europe’s Themis demonstrator reusable first stage, first proposed in 2018, have now been delayed until 2025.
In a May 2024 presentation given at the International Civil Aviation Organization offices in Paris, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) announced that initial Themis hop tests would only begin next year. SSC is in charge of the operation of Esrange Space Centre in Sweden, where these initial tests of an integrated Themis demonstrator will begin. Once ArianeGroup moves onto higher altitude flights, the testing will be moved to the Guiana Space Centre.
The demonstrator itself is being built by a partnership of the private company ArianeGroup (Airbus and Safran) and the French space agency CNES, and was originallly supposed to begin test hops in 2022. These delays are typical of European government-run space operations. Note too that this is not a usable first stage, merely a demonstrator. For it to become operational it will have to be rebuilt.
None of this should be a surprise, since the man who runs Arianespace and is likely a key player in all this work, Stephan Israel, said in 2023 this stage would not become operational until the 2030s. Israel has been hostile to reusability from day one, and apparently is having some influence in slowing or blocking this development.
By the time this reusable first stage flies, it will be entirely obsolete and an utter waste of money, at least from a business and profit point of view. It will however have served these bankrupt companies and space agencies well as an empty jobs program, accomplishing little but make-work.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
There is nothing “empty” about what you call a “jobs program.”
You either have a rocket industry–or you don’t.
Valuable engineering experience will result–and that is a good in its own right.
You sound like a Boeing shareholder sometimes, Mr. Z
That squealing sound you‘re hearing is the result of the brakes being applied to the gravy trains of government space organizations across the world, except for China & Russia. Commercial space will soon expand to be larger than any governnent program. I say it‘s “high time” it began to happen!
Jeff Wright
July 15, 2024 at 5:42 pm
There is nothing “empty” about what you call a “jobs program.”
You are right. A jobs program is a negative as it ties up people that could have been doing productive work. Supported by tax dollars from people that are doing productive work. That’s two negatives. Then when the deadweight loss of the system is added in, it becomes triple. It would be cheaper to pay them unemployment for the same results.