Europe's Ariane 6 rocket rated 'ready to rumble' after passing hot fire test The Ariane 6 launcher has successfully conducted a hot fire test –, an important achievement for the Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA). "ESA's new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehearsal today [November 23] in preparation for its first flight, when teams on the ground went through a complete launch …
Its in everyone's interests that there's competition, the more the better really.
Ariane was the just about the only thing that kept ULA and it's predecessors "honest" (in the typical twisted defense contractor manner of speaking "honest") for a long time before anyone thought SpaceX was a serious competitor.
And if I'm not mistaken the JWST was launched on an Ariane 5, so it's not like there's no US interest in the ESA's programs just regardless.
This extended test result is good news, particularly for the bean counters which must be dreading the first real flight.
We all remember the earlier Ariane "mishaps" so they are not our of the woods yet for sure.
As for costs then, surely, the low percentage of reusable components in Arianne 6 means that Space-X is still more competitive. And, as Arianne 6 is a long way from getting any sort of track record, the insurance will be very high against Space-X too.
I guess we should still wish them well.
Independent access was somewhere between a reason and an excuse. Another incentive was as a jobs program. Falcon 9 first launch was 2010. It was optimized for cost and a threat to Ariane's commercial launch business. Europe was not prepared to 100% fund independent access to space and wanted at least 50% from commercial launches.
Ariane 6 got funding in 2016 because the proposed costing matched Falcon 9 before re-use (later that year) while providing independent access to space and securing existing jobs. Falcon 9 re-use broke the funding model - as did escalating Ariane 6 costs. Earning another bad timing award, Europe switched funding methods by offering launch contracts to commercial companies while Amazon bought a batch of Kuiper launches on Ariane 6.
>We all remember the earlier Ariane "mishaps" so they are not our of the woods yet for sure.
Ariane 5 has a pretty good record. The first one blew, the first one of the improved version 10 years later fell into a swamp - but the others stayed up !
they had a couple of 2nd stage partial failures but on a scale of massive rockets they have an enviable record.
They were also much more precise than alternatives at the time, so the payloads didn't need as much manoeuvring fuel themselves - don't know how SpaceX's craft compare
The EU is a bunch of weaklings who need Uncle Sam to protect them from ANY REAL threat. Like the Russkies or the Turks.
They will degrade defense capabilities to zero* while talking childish-pacifist nonsense. When the threat pops up, they cannot even organize a Common European Defence Exercise. Easy to play Divide Et Impera with said weaklings.
So the lack of a satellite launcher is much less of an issue than LACK OF COJONES.
*Look up SENIOR GUARDIAN, Heeresfunkgeräte, EADS Barracuda, EuroHAWK, "Kampfdrohnen völkerrechtlich nicht verboten"
You're right that Ariane began as a French endeavor, but is a joint European organisation since 2015, the same date that Ariane 6 was selected. So, unfortunately, it's the exact opposite of your petty remark:
Perhaps because they are French ?
no, because they're NOT french anymore. As long as space-research was lead by France, things worked quite well, and it's only since "Europe" – whatever that is – took over that it goes down the sewer. Tells more about you than the French actually
"Ariane was astoundingly stupid by scrapping Ariane 5 before a single Ariane 6 launch. "
Not really. Delays are always an issue in aerospace, but if there were still A-5's on the schedule when A-6 was ready to go, that might have been a big financial hit if people wanted to switch. Launches are also scheduled years in advance (at least loosely) which make the A-6 delays painful.
They have an army of bureaucrats and engineers planning (very poorly) and fighting over (stupidly) every tiny little aspect vs. the SpaceX model of using a very lean organization with a "let's try our best with what we've got right now and blow up prototypes as learning experiences" ethos.
The irony is that the SpaceX model is faster, better, and massively cheaper.
NASA spent over $10 billion on a vehicle to replace the space shuttle (which itself was a monstrously expensive boondoggle that had a ~2% fatality rate), and for that much money they didn't even have a design.
SpaceX had a designed, tested, and validated solution for around $250M. Did it have every conceivable wish-list feature? No. But it works, and SpaceX has since iterated it into a re-usable platform with continuous improvements in capacity.
NASA and ESA aren't space programs, they're white-collar government welfare scams that occasionally launch hideously overpriced rockets with sketchy safety records. Companies like SpaceX are going to leave them in the dust, as they should. Unfortunately (and I am genuinely sad about this, not rubbing it in), the EU hatred for successful entrepreneurship burns with the heat of a thousand exploding rockets, and so the major EU powers will not be able to replicate SpaceX's success in the foreseeable future.
So how exactly does that work?
SpaceX launches some rockets and suddenly ESA forgets how to? Or do you believe that Elon Musk has voodoo dolls of Ariane rockets in his office that he sticks pins in while laughing maniacally? Is it just penis envy? What exactly are you trying to say here?
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What are you doing on this site if you don't know how to answer a question that takes a few minutes with a search engine?
SpaceX's Falcon rocket development, testing, and certification (around $200M) was funded by private equity and venture capital, with Elon Musk personally paying for 50% of this ($100M) out of his own pocket.
Once Falcon was proven, SpaceX started getting paid by the government to launch payloads into orbit, and to deliver people and cargo to and from the ISS.
With an established track record, SpaceX has been awarded a $2.9 billion contract from NASA for a system that puts people and cargo on the moon. This contract is payable at certain milestones based on performance.
Cost per launch depends on a wide variety of factors, including orbital destination, payload weight, whether multiple payloads can share a single launch, etc.
AC: What are you doing on this site if you don't know how to answer a question that takes a few minutes with a search engine?
cow: Do you ?
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies
ano; *sigh* Ever heard of iterative testing?
I'm not a Musk fanboi by any means but seriously, you really need to understand that the rocketry business is... different.
cow: So you mention iterative which has a standard meaning everywhere and then say its different? How does that work ?
There's that weird idea that SpaceX is competing with NASA again. NASA doesn't build or operate rockets, it runs air and space research programs. SpaceX doesn't have a space exploration program, it builds rockets and launches customers' payloads.
SpaceX had a designed, tested, and validated solution for around $250M.
SpaceX's initial Falcon 9 development costs of $400 million included about $250 million from NASA. Later reusability refinements on the Falcon 9 and development of SpaceX's Dragon capsule depended heavily on NASA's multi-billion dollar commercial launch services contracts and commercial crew delivery contracts. SpaceX's DragonEye docking system for the capsules was tested on shuttle flights (themselves run by a private company, the United Space Alliance) to the International Space Station (which was largely built by western private sector entities, like Boeing).
SpaceX is again getting billions of dollars from NASA to develop the Starship. As of last count, two loads of funding under NASA's Human Launch Services contracts have given SpaceX $4.04 billion to get Starship airborne and, eventually, deliver people to the moon.
SpaceX, like Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Arianespace, and many other private entities, are contractors for NASA. NASA gets huge sums of funding from Congress to study space and then finds contractors to build and fly its rockets because the US public thinks it is uncool for government agencies to run, say, rocket factories. NASA's launch service contractors, meanwhile...
Companies like SpaceX are going to leave them in the dust, as they should.
...never created or ran space exploration programs. SpaceX hasn't put a penny of its own money into developing a deep space probe, running teams of space researchers and astronomers, or operating aerodynamics research labs like NASA has. SpaceX is a delivery service that builds its own delivery vehicles, with a developing side hustle in communications.
SpaceX has been groundbreaking in its advancement of launch services and cost reductions, which have pretty much knocked Boeing and Lockheed-Martin (operating as the United Launch Alliance) out of the market. Under Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX has done some great work. And NASA is loving that SpaceX work: SpaceX lets NASA run redundant, competing lines of rocket and lander development to make sure Artemis gets to the moon whether the SLS tanks or Starship keeps blowing up.
It's just a misunderstanding to think that SpaceX is competing with NASA. They're doing completely different things.
I don’t believe this test was fully successful, if you look carefully. During the final minute of the burn, the flame went from the normal yellow with shock cone, to more transparent without shock cone. Also the shaking decreases markedly, suggesting less thrust was being developed. I’m not the only person to have noticed that.
https://spacenews.com/ariane-6-completes-long-duration-static-fire-test/
“although the performance of the engine appeared to change in the final minute of the burn.”
“The test firing was scheduled to last 470 seconds…… describing it as a “seven-minute full firing” of the engine, rather than the nearly eight minutes advertised beforehand.”
“The engine was intended to fire for 470 seconds. However, the engine shut down after 426 seconds, which officials attributed to a faulty sensor and “very conservative” test thresholds intended to protect the launch pad that would not have been used on an actual launch.”
But they still reckon to stick to a June/July 2024 launch date, with a real payload. And no full-length full test between now and then. That’s “brave”.
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