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posted by martyb on Thursday June 27 2019, @11:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the reverse-thrust dept.

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


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  • (Score: 2) by quietus on Friday June 28 2019, @06:18AM

    by quietus (6328) on Friday June 28 2019, @06:18AM (#860845) Journal

    The guy is an engineer who worked himself up through the ranks -- responsible for Ariane 5 development and ISS projects -- to become Director of Operations of the Space division of Airbus in 2013, and finally CEO for the last three years of his career (2015-2018). He's not an upper-class MBA, nor has he ever worked in administration.

    The cost of an Ariane 5 launch was about $60 million, in 2014. The cost of a SpaceX launch, as proposed to the German government, is around $50 million, in 2018. Those same launches though, are being sold to the US government for $100 million a pop. If you're all for the free market, this must grate.

    Why is the US government buying overpriced SpaceX launches while they could have bought them far cheaper on the open market? (The money can better be spent on streets, bridges or repairing school buildings for example.)

    In 2017 there were -- worldwide -- 91 satellite launches. Of these, 62 were so-called institutional launches: launches which were not open to competition. Arianespace had only 2.5 of these (he'd like to see [lecho.be] that number rise to 5 a year). Guess who had the bulk of these 'institutional' launches?

    You claim that reusability is going to be the future of space travel. I haven't investigated technically, so no opinion there, only three remarks:

    1. Price apparently isn't the explanation, as Ariane5 is already (more than?) competitive, and Ariane 6 is going to push these costs down even further.
    2. Arianespace doesn't foresee it becoming important in the immediate future. The crucial factor, a reusable engine (Prometheus), has a 2030 horizon.
    3. This RETALT thing which is represented in the sub as somehow being affiliated with the European Commission: it isn't. They're some kind of research project, sponsored partly by the German Aerospace Center and a couple of small German companies: they have 16 staff members [retalt.eu] (which explains the €3 million funding amount.)
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