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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: 1) by khallow on Friday June 28 2019, @12:02PM (2 children)
Well, sure, NASA is willing to pay more. But there is plenty of grief attached to that NASA money. Launches aren't equivalent in cost. NASA has all kinds of special requirements that drive up the cost of launch.
One of those valid, but unintended points is that the Ariane rocket is a dead end. He can only keep the mess going with subsidized launches from "European governments" (which may end up being private companies with substantial government ownership, a common feature in the European economy). Those governments can save plenty of their taxpayers' money, should that ever become important to them, by going with SpaceX.
Nobody with control over their own money will pay $100 million for a launch.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday June 28 2019, @03:00PM (1 child)
What leads you to the conclusion that the Ariane rocket is a dead end?
As to your "private companies with substantial government ownership": funny how they only result in about 2 subsidized missions a year (see my response to takyon), while the rest of their launches (11 in 2017, and again 11 in 2018) go at the open market rate of $60 million. Funny also how those European governments go for the bottom price on the market, even for launching their own military satellites.
In contrast to that despicable socialist behaviour, SpaceX's launches were subsidized 6 out of 17 (2017) and 7 out of 19 (2018).
It is you who subsidize these launches, not the Europeans: for the benefit of a private company, spaceX, and to the detriment of a once proud, public, institution, NASA.
As you remarked yourself: Nobody with control over their own money will pay $100 million for a launch. And yet you do.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 29 2019, @12:11PM
It needs 10 subsidized launches a year (it's not flying ten times a year now). Even you admit that SpaceX doesn't fly that many supposedly subsidized flights.
I'd put that figure closer to 11 subsidized launches out of 11 each year (mostly of non-Ariane platforms like Soyuz). Europeans play these accounting games all the time. Arianespace, the builder of the Ariane rocket gets subsidies [aviationweek.com] around 100 million Euro a year (with Arianespace supposedly mulling at the time whether to request an increase in those subsidies). Meanwhile even on the NASA flights, which BTW are more costly than normal flights due to stringent NASA demands, SpaceX gets paid for launches provided.
NASA jumped the shark decades ago. If my taxes weren't allegedly subsidizing SpaceX, they'd be subsidizing the military industrial complex (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK).
Control over their own money.
The difference here is that Arianespace needs those subsidies to exist. Any such subsidies for SpaceX are pure profit and turned into more R&D. When are we going to see the Ariane 6? How many SpaceX R&D cycles will happen before we see this next generation of rockets from Europe? So no present without subsidies and no future without much more subsidies. That's what makes Ariane a dead end.