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from the government-efficiency-vs-private-enterprise-disruption dept.
Europe is starting to freak out about the launch dominance of SpaceX:
A little more than a week ago, the European Space Agency[(ESA)] announced an initiative to study "future space transportation solutions." Basically, the agency provided about $600,000, each, to three companies—ArianeGroup, Avio, and Rocket Factory Augsburg—to study competitive launch systems from 2030 onward.
[...] there now appears to be increasing concern in Europe that the Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets will not be competitive in the launch market of the near future. This is important, because while member states of the European Space Agency pay for development of the rockets, after reaching operational status, these launch programs are expected to become self-sufficient by attracting commercial satellite launches to help pay the bills.
Economic ministers in France and Italy have now concluded that the launch market has changed dramatically since 2014, when the Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets were first designed. According to a report in Le Figaro newspaper, the ministers believe the ability of these new European rockets to compete for commercial launch contracts has significantly deteriorated since then.
It would seem that ESA's payback plan didn't expect an agile competitor to disrupt the entire market with efficiencies that governments seem unable to match. But, there's more.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet in talks for a place in the UK’s $6.9 billion ‘Project Gigabit’:
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is in talks with the United Kingdom for the company’s Starlink satellite unit to potentially earn funding as a part of the government’s new $6.9 billion internet infrastructure program, CNBC confirmed.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @06:24AM (1 child)
As far as I understood, the main purpose of publicly-financed European space programs is not to be competitve in a global market.
The goal is to maintain economic activity (all the jobs) and some technological know-how.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by richtopia on Wednesday March 24 2021, @02:22PM
Two other things: rockets can be considered national security concerns (government satellites are sensitive cargo) and avoiding a single vendor scenario.