In a rare case of any connection to reality, a European Union commissioner overseeing the space industry has recognized the elephant in the room, admitting that SpaceX has changed the game for commercial rockets and that the upcoming Ariane 6 rocket can now be out of date.
Although mild, the European Commissioner Thierry Breton expressed Some level of urgency, stating that “SpaceX has redefined the standards for launchers”. “Ariane 6 is a necessary step, but not the end goal: We must start thinking about Ariane 7 now.” Ariane 6 is a new rocket from the European Space Agency (ESA) designed to replace the existing Ariane 5 workhorse and do something while reducing costs. However, the design of the vehicle and the strategy behind it were fixed in place. before SpaceX began routinely demonstrating the reuse of Falcon 9, effectively creating a rocket optimized for a market that ceased to exist soon after.
Based on the economically unfeasible design decision to build a hybrid first stage with a liquid core and solid rocket boosters (SRB), as well as the structurally inefficient use of hydrogen and liquid oxygen booster for booster, Ariane 6 is designed to compete with the likes of Delta IV, Atlas V and the upcoming Vulcan rockets from United Launch Alliance (ULA). Despite several years of half-hearted, half-hearted attempts to consider By making parts of Ariane 6 reusable, the rocket will be 100% expendable in its first (and probably last) releases.
Although effectively killed upon arrival from a commercially competitive perspective, Ariane 6 remains an impressive rocket. With two variants, the only big difference is the inclusion of two or four SRBs. The A62 is expected to cost approximately $ 82 million and will be able to launch up to 5,000 kg (~ 11,000 lb) into the geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) commonly used by communications satellites that are the bread and butter of Ariane 5. Doubling the drivers of solid rockets, A64 will cost at least $ 135 million each and can launch up to 11.5 metric tons (~ 25,400 lb) at GTO and 5 metric tons at circular geostationary orbit (GEO).
Compared to SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy offerings, Ariane 6 is in a nightmare situation. Based on the most current information available, the base price for a commercial orbital launch in a flight-tested Falcon 9 booster may already be as low as $ 50 million. Even in a recoverable configuration, Falcon 9 easily outperforms Ariane 62 performance and can launch over 16 metric tons into low Earth orbit (A62: 10.3t) and 5.5 tons (A62: 5t) into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) , all while it costs almost 40% less.
Technically, Ariane 64 is a bit more workable from a performance perspective, but Falcon Heavy can deliver near-identical performance at higher orbits and far superior performance at lower orbits while allowing for recovery of all three boosters. On the cost side, Falcon Heavy meets or exceeds A64, with existing contracts ranging from $ 115 to $ 130 million for extraordinarily high-value NASA and US military cargo. According to SpaceX, the base price of the rocket could be as low as $ 90 million. Once SpaceX has three operational unmanned spacecraft on the east coast, Falcon Heavy can send up to 10 metric tons to GTO while still allowing all three thrusters to land at sea. If one of those three boosters is spent, that performance increases to 16 tons, 40% more than A64.
In short, even assuming there are no improvements between now and the first Ariane 6 launches in 2021 and 2022, SpaceX’s existing Falcon 9 and Heavy rockets beat the newest entrant from Europe in almost every way. It should come as no surprise, then, that an ESA high commissioner is already publicly hinting that Ariane 6 is outdated before its first release. As for “Ariane 7”, there are no official plans, although ESA, the French space agency (CNES) and Arianespace have tenuous concepts at work that point to a fully liquid methane-oxygen rocket with a reusable booster.
In theory, a rocket like Themis could launch Europe back into the competitive global launch industry, but ESA’s launch vehicle development history suggests that such a radical departure from Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 (> $ 4 billion) alone) would require a huge increase in funding and 5-10 years of development. With pragmatic supporters like Breton, there are at least Some hope, but the picture is decidedly gray.
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