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Previously, the EU-propped Ariane Group's CEO scoffed at the idea of pursuing reusable rockets (the upcoming Ariane 6 is fully expendable) due to Europe having a small market of 5-10 launches per year, as well as the potential effects on rocket-building jobs:
[Chief executive of Ariane Group, Alain] Charmeau said the Ariane rocket does not launch often enough to justify the investment into reusability. (It would need about 30 launches a year to justify these costs, he said). And then Charmeau said something telling about why reusability doesn't make sense to a government-backed rocket company—jobs.
"Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—we would build exactly one rocket per year," he said. "That makes no sense. I cannot tell my teams: 'Goodbye, see you next year!'"
This seems a moment of real irony. Whereas earlier in the interview Charmeau accuses the US government of subsidizing SpaceX, a few minutes later he says the Ariane Group can't make a reusable rocket because it would be too efficient. For Europe, a difficult decision now looms. It can either keep subsidizing its own launch business in order to maintain an independent capability, or it can give in to Elon Musk and SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. Charmeau seems to have a clear view of where he thinks the continent should go.
Now, the attitude has changed:
Europe says SpaceX "dominating" launch, vows to develop Falcon 9-like rocket
This month, the European Commission revealed a new three-year project to develop technologies needed for two proposed reusable launch vehicles. The commission provided €3 million to the German space agency, DLR, and five companies to, in the words of a news release about the project, "tackle the shortcoming of know-how in reusable rockets in Europe."
This new RETALT project's goals are pretty explicit about copying the retro-propulsive engine firing technique used by SpaceX to land its Falcon 9 rocket first stages back on land and on autonomous drone ships. The Falcon 9 rocket's ability to land and fly again is "currently dominating the global market," the European project states. "We are convinced that it is absolutely necessary to investigate Retro Propulsion Assisted Landing Technologies to make re-usability state-of-the-art in Europe."
Ariane Group isn't one of the five companies, but then again, €3 million isn't a lot of money.
Even a fully reusable rocket is on the table:
[...] attitude of the new RETALT project appears to have indicated European acceptance of the inevitability of reusable launch vehicles. Engineers will work toward two different concepts. The first will be a Falcon-9-like rocket that will make use of seven modified Vulcain 2 rocket engines and have the capacity to lift up to 30 tons to low-Earth orbit. The second will be a more revolutionary single-stage-to-orbit vehicle that looks like the Roton rocket developed by Rotary Rocket about two decades ago.
They should mine Elon Musk's Twitter for clues. Try making the rocket out of stainless steel.
Previously: Full Thrust on Europe's New Ariane 6 Rocket
SpaceX's Reusable Rockets Could End EU's Arianespace, and Other News
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:18PM (3 children)
If rocket launch prices get cheap enough, might it become reasonable for governments to try to clean up some of the space junk?
Maybe cooperate on it?
Is such a thing feasible?
Might it simply become necessary to get rid of some of the oldest junk that predates the idea that satellites should have an end of life plan.
Young people won't believe you if you say you're older than Google. (born before 1998-09-03)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @08:06PM
No.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Thursday June 27 2019, @09:22PM
They can't even cooperate to clean up earth-junk.
Let alone stop producing huge amounts of earth-junk.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday June 27 2019, @09:55PM
Depends on the goal, I think. Debris below a certain size might be difficult to gather.
I'm thinking you just send up an ion engine spacecraft that can adjust its orbit hundreds of times to catch up with and intercept pieces of debris. It would collect them using various methods (nets, magnets, etc.) and deorbit after a certain amount is gathered.
The threat of space debris is exaggerated though. The scenario shown in Gravity is absurd, and the debris occupies a 3D space larger than the volume of Earth with a "surface" larger than Earth's at any given altitude. You can produce a scary looking map of space debris, but you would have to really work at colliding with it most of the time.
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