Capitalism in space: Arianespace yesterday announced that it has purchased the last ten Ariane 5 rockets as part of the company’s transition to its new Ariane 6 rocket in 2020.
These rockets appear to be for launches from 2020 to 2023, during a time period when they will be testing Ariane 6 and initiating its first operational flights.
The competition heats up: Arianespace officials told reporters today that it plans to complete 14 launches in 2018, which would be a record for the company.
For 2018, the company is targeting seven launches of the Ariane 5 model, four launches for the Soyuz model and three launches of the Vega satellite launcher.
Isn’t competition wonderful? SpaceX forces everyone to lower their launch prices, and instead of going out of business, which the old rocket companies were saying would happen for decades should they be forced to drop prices, everyone gets more customers, more business, and more profits. I am shocked, shocked!
Whether Arianespace can maintain this growth however is another story. As newer rocket companies, such as Blue Origin, come on line with even lower costs, I am not sure their more expensive rockets will survive.
Capitalism in space: Using its Ariane 5 rocket Arianespace yesterday successfully placed four European Galileo GPS satellites in orbit.
This is expected to be Arianespace’s last launch for 2017. The standings for the most launches in 2017 as of today:
27 United States
18 Russia
16 SpaceX
15 China
11 Arianespace
SpaceX and Russia each have two scheduled launches, while China has one. China however does not release information about all of its upcoming launches, so it might surprise us with more.
Capitalism in space: Faced with stiff and increasing competition from SpaceX, European governments are finally beginning to realize that their decades of poo-pooing the concept of rocket reusability might have been a big mistake.
In what was likely an unexpected question during a Nov. 19 interview with Europe 1 radio, French Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was asked if SpaceX meant the death of Ariane.
“Death? I’m not sure I’d say that. But I am certain of the threat,” Le Maire said. “I am worried.” Le Maire cited figures that are far from proven — including a possible 80% reduction in the already low SpaceX Falcon 9 launch price once the benefits of reusability are realized. “We need to relfect on a reusable launcher in Europe, and we need to invest massively in innovation,” Le Maire said.
Then there was a report out of Germany that has concluded that SpaceX commitment to reusability is about to pay off.
The article also cites those in Europe and with the U.S. company ULA that remain convinced that they can compete with expendable rockets. In reading their analysis, however, I was struck by how much it appeared they were putting their heads in the sand to avoid facing the realities, one of which has been the obvious fact that SpaceX has been competitively running rings around them all. This is a company that did not even exist a decade ago. This year it very well could launch more satellites than Europe and ULA combined.
Capitalism in space: Morocco’s first reconnaissance satellite, built in France, was successfully launched into orbit last night by Arianespace’s Vega rocket.
This was Arianespace’s tenth launch in 2017, one more than its total for 2016 With one more launch scheduled, it appears the company will achieve close to its desired launch rate of one launch per month, despite labor problems in the spring that shut it down for almost two months.
Increasingly, Arianespace’s business (or ArianeGroup, depending on the rocket) seems restricted to European satellites. Its market share of American satellites is more and more being taken by American companies. This doesn’t appear to be reducing the company’s overall launch rate, however, proving once again that competition is not a zero sum game. Introduce it, and instead of the players fighting over a never changing pie of business, the pie grows so that everyone is doing more.
Capitalism in space: Arianespace today successfully launched two commercial satellites using its Ariane 5 rocket.
Capitalism in space: Arianespace has awarded the Italian manufacturer a new contract to build ten more Vega rockets.
Of these ten rockets, three already have launch contracts for ESA satellites. I suspect Arianespace already knows of at least seven more government payloads are mandated to use its rockets to get into space, which would explain this rocket order now.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has purchased the first two Ariane 6 launches to place four of its Galileo GPS satellites in orbit in the 2020-21 timeframe.
This is not a big surprise, since ESA is mandated to use Arianespace’s rockets, and the space agency is the obvious candidate for making the first commitment to this new rocket’s use.
The press release does not mention the price that Arianespace is charging for these launches, but I suspect it isn’t anywhere near as cheap as they will have to charge to truly private and commercial customers. Essentially, I am willing to bet that this contract award is a bit of crony capitalism, designed to pass some extra cash from ESA to Arianespace.
Capitalism in space: Arianespace today announced it has won a new launch contract for two different satellites, bringing its launch manifest to 53.
The press release contains a lot of interesting tidbits:
Overall, it looks like this European private/government partnership is doing reasonably well in the new very competitive launch market. I still expect their business to shrink in the coming years, but I think they will be around for awhile.
Arianespace has identified an issue in the electrical system in one of the Ariane 5’s solid rocket boosters as the source of the launch abort yesterday.
This is a preliminary report. They still need to find out exactly what happened and why. However, they also announced that their objective is to launch before the end of September. Moreover, they are not going to change the schedule of any of their other launches because of this.
During an attempt to launch two commercial satellites today Arianespace experienced a launch abort at t minus 0 seconds.
The Ariane 5 rocket went into safe mode and no apparent harm was done to it or its payloads. No word yet on the cause of the abort.
Because of a scheduling conflict with a European mission to Mercury Arianespace might delay its launch of the American James Webb Space Telescope to 2019.
A time-sensitive mission to explore the planet Mercury, already delayed several times, may force the European Space Agency (ESA) and Arianespace to push back the launch of NASA’s multi-billion dollar James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) into early 2019. The mission, named BepiColombo, is currently scheduled to launch on the same rocket, the Ariane 5, from the same spaceport in French Guiana, during the same timeframe that the JWST is scheduled to launch (October 2018).
A launch delay to BepiColumbo won’t impact the science of the ESA/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission, but it would translate to a longer journey to Mercury. The last launch delay, which pushed it from April 2018 to October 2018, also translated to a year longer voyage to reach Mercury, now expected to arrive in 2025 instead of 2024.
This is a perfect illustration of the difference between governments and private enterprise. Government-owned Arianespace has been flying its Ariane 5 rockets now for almost two decades, but they have not yet learned how to launch two rockets in one month, and don’t appear interested in trying. Meanwhile, private companies like SpaceX and ULA are both working to achieve a normal twice-a-month launch rate, with SpaceX likely to beat that in the next few years.
