Arianespace launch thread

[tater]

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

You could be referring to the SRBs, the porkolox fuel, or both 

"Made in all the districts" was the thought.

[darthgently]

11 hours ago, tater said:

"Made in all the districts" was the thought.

porkolox fueled.  Not all a bad thing, but we've all seen the dark side

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

15 hours ago, tater said:

What makes Ariane 6 really tick (hint: it's the same special sauce as SLS/Orion):

Participation trophy mindset. 

Probably because the politicians are so stupid that handing them a lollipop entitlement to their district is about as far as they think. 

This is why market driven scenarios work better (well, actually, war driven scenarios also work) to drive innovation and efficiency. 

[tater]

4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Participation trophy mindset. 

Probably because the politicians are so stupid that handing them a lollipop entitlement to their district is about as far as they think. 

This is why market driven scenarios work better (well, actually, war driven scenarios also work) to drive innovation and efficiency. 

To be fair, this is the model that the US used from the early days of the Apollo program, and pretty much all other space programs have been top-down affairs. If everyone plays the same game it's slow, but it works.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, tater said:

To be fair, this is the model that the US used from the early days of the Apollo program, and pretty much all other space programs have been top-down affairs. If everyone plays the same game it's slow, but it works.

Kinda my point.  Space Race was part of the Cold War... And then once the prestige goals had been met, and there wasn't any immediately obvious profit motive - everything slowed dramatically.  

Sure we kept putting up spy sats and some science - but it took a commercial reason for 'Space' to be viable.  Internet, phones, television and navigation and other communication technologies became (and still are) the primary drivers.   Until recently - those firms were too small to be able to do anything but ask for rides from the government(s).

The Bezos / Musk / other private launch competition is changing things - we are seeing the market in action and possibly the most innovative time in 'Space' since the 60s. 

I just hope people not only keep making money from 'Space' but that we keep inventing new ways to make even more money and the process snowballs 

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, tater said:

To be fair, this is the model that the US used from the early days of the Apollo program, and pretty much all other space programs have been top-down affairs. If everyone plays the same game it's slow, but it works.

I admit, I was harsh.  But I find it hard to say their committee space system is working well and that makes it hard to be gentle.  They were in a position to move to compete with F9 but the web of existing contracts held them fast to the past.  Very familiar story. 

It is chaffing a bit that the CCP may land a booster before a big player like ESA.   They are as pridefully afraid of appearing to be "copying" as the Chinese are shamelessly willing to unabashedly do so.  There really is a middle ground called "creative competition in the real world".   

So glad other private firms in the West are taking the new normal seriously

[tater]

6 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I admit, I was harsh.  But I find it hard to say their committee space system is working well and that makes it hard to be gentle.  They were in a position to move to compete with F9 but the web of existing contracts held them fast to the past.  Very familiar story. 

I agree with you completely. I was merely saying that their method was the norm pre-SpaceX. No government(s) are going to be as agile as required I think.

[Spaceception]

https://www.aerosociety.com/media/23637/efs-day-2-valere-girardin.pdf

I don't think this has been shared here, but this is a study for space based solar, using fully reusable rockets developed by Ariane/RFA (page 5). May or may not be funded, but I suppose it's something that they have a concept?

https://x.com/KenKirtland17/status/1792995308932063556

 

[Exoscientist]

 

 ESA official discusses the upcoming in July Ariane 6 inaugural launch:

Europe aims to end space access crisis with Ariane 6’s inaugural launch.
Frédéric Castel
June 24, 2024
https://spacenews.com/europe-aims-to-end-space-access-crisis-with-ariane-6s-inaugural-launch/

 He doesn’t think the Starship will be a competitor to the Ariane 6. He also doesn’t think there is currently enough of a European market for reusable rockets yet, though he says reusabilty for European rockets will be important in the following few decades.

  Bob Clark

Edited Thursday at 09:24 PM by Exoscientist

[RCgothic]

Lol, Europe doesn't have a rocket market anymore.  There'll be a few mandatory government payloads and that's it. 

Ariane 6 won't be competing with Starship because it can't even compete with Falcon.

[RCgothic]

Speaking of: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/mere-days-before-its-debut-the-ariane-6-rocket-loses-a-key-customer-to-spacex/

Even government payloads not safe for Ariane it seems.

Edited Friday at 08:26 PM by RCgothic

[Exoscientist]

22 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Speaking of: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/mere-days-before-its-debut-the-ariane-6-rocket-loses-a-key-customer-to-spacex/

Even government payloads not safe for Ariane it seems.

From the article:

In a shocking announcement this week, the European intergovernmental organization responsible for launching and operating the continent's weather satellites has pulled its next mission off a future launch of Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket. Instead, the valuable MTG-S1 satellite will now reach geostationary orbit on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket in 2025. 

 Instead of ESA complaining that someone chose a better product when they offered a poor product, they should instead offer a better product, fully within their capability to do so:

Towards a revolutionary advance in spaceflight: an all-liquid Ariane 6.
https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2023/06/towards-revolutionary-advance-in.html

  Bob Clark

[.50calBMG]

A new product that will be even further delayed?

[RCgothic]

Europe clearly needs to do something to compete.

But even if they put forward a design targeting falcon-like cadence and reusability, by the time it's ready it'd already be obsolete. 

Needs a much larger rethink than just producing an all-liquid ariane variant.

They need an engine that can be produced at a rate of several per day, with better-than-Merlin levels of reusability, and enough thrust to not need solid boosters for assistance. 

Hydrogen engines are out on poor thrust and difficulty to refurb (tricky h2 seals).

Kerolox is out because of coking.

So they probably need a methalox engine as a starting point 

[darthgently]

7 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Europe clearly needs to do something to compete.

But even if they put forward a design targeting falcon-like cadence and reusability, by the time it's ready it'd already be obsolete. 

Needs a much larger rethink than just producing an all-liquid ariane variant.

They need an engine that can be produced at a rate of several per day, with better-than-Merlin levels of reusability, and enough thrust to not need solid boosters for assistance. 

Hydrogen engines are out on poor thrust and difficulty to refurb (tricky h2 seals).

Kerolox is out because of coking.

So they probably need a methalox engine as a starting point 

The problem as I see it is that F9 reusability is the smaller portion of SpaceX's advantage.  The larger portion is that SpaceX has vertically integrated their own killer-app use-case:  Starlink.   ESA clearly won't be competing for Starlink launches and without that "market" F9 launches would be a fraction of what they've been.  For all the shade Musk gets that he isn't a "real" engineer, I think that history will reflect that he was perhaps the most astute entrepreneur of our era, at the top for sure, derpy though he may present to some