(Bloomberg) — Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket launched into orbit during its maiden flight, a key step toward proving that an old, off-the-shelf launcher still has a place in an industry increasingly dominated by reusable vehicles.
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The rocket, built by the Airbus SE-Safran SA joint venture ArianeGroup and operated by its subsidiary Arianespace, took off from French Guiana on the northern coast of South America on Tuesday at 3pm New York time.
“We are on the verge of tears here in the commentary box because this is a big day and a big moment,” television host Katy Haswell said during a live webcast.
Ariane 6’s debut mission is expected to last almost three hours. After about an hour of flight, the rocket will attempt to deploy several satellites. Later, two uncrewed space capsules will separate from the vehicle and attempt to survive a fiery flight through Earth’s atmosphere to return home as part of a technology demonstration. Over the course of the mission, the rocket’s top portion will attempt to reignite its engine several times while in orbit.
Although it is the centerpiece of European space ambitions, Ariane 6 lacks the reusable rocket technology that powered SpaceX’s rise to near-monopoly dominance. Still, officials say they are winning business from satellite operators like Amazon.com Inc., which face a shortage of non-SpaceX launches.
If successful, the next mission is expected to take place before the end of the year, with six flights planned in 2025 and a goal of achieving 9 to 12 launches per year.
“We have three years of firm orders,” Lucia Linares, head of strategy and institutional launches at the European Space Agency, told reporters last month.
European launch provider Arianespace went into orbit only a handful of times last year, but lost business to Elon Musk’s rockets, which can be cheaper because they reuse the boosters from the first stage that takes them to space.
Ariane 6 is part of a broader effort by longtime defense contractors who once dominated the rocket business.
Before the rise of SpaceX, companies like ArianeGroup, Boeing Co. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries were the main producers. SpaceX, founded in 2002, revolutionized the rocket industry by pioneering reusable boosters and building many parts in-house. The company first reused a Falcon 9 booster in 2017, helping to reduce costs and time between missions.
The innovations took the old guard by surprise. Musk’s company flew nearly 100 missions last year, according to SpaceX. Older generation American, European, and Japanese rocket manufacturers had a combined total of about 10, as many struggled to develop rockets that could compete with the Falcons.
The new rockets, delayed by problems manufacturing engines and other parts, are finally ready. However, they are not reusable and may not be advanced enough to scare SpaceX, which intends for its giant Starship, the new rocket that had its fourth test flight on June 6, to be “fully reusable.”
“The cracks are starting to show” for established companies, said Rebecca Allen, co-director of the Space Industry and Technology Institute at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. “They are at a critical time to prove that they still have value.”
While startups appear to have the upper hand, it’s still too early to count out traditional rocket makers, she said. In fact, the year started well for the older rivals.
The Vulcan, from the Boeing-Lockheed Martin Corp joint venture. United Launch Alliance, took off for the first time in early January. At the time, a confident ULA planned seven flights for this year.
Japan’s space agency, JAXA, launched Mitsubishi Heavy’s first H3 in February, about a year after a previous attempt failed. JAXA launched again on July 1st.
A new version of the smaller European rocket, the Vega C, has not flown since a failure in December 2022, but is expected to launch by the end of the year, according to Avio SpA. The Italian manufacturer plans a mission of an older version of the Vega In September.
Japan’s smaller Epsilon S rocket is still grounded, following an explosion in July last year.
ULA is trying to launch its second Vulcan certification flight in September and increase its launch frequency while facing pressure and financial penalties from the Pentagon.
ULA is working on plans to reuse Vulcan engines, Bruno said in a Jan. 8 statement. Although Mitsubishi Heavy also wants to have a reusable vehicle, “we are not at the stage of developing anything concrete at the moment,” CEO Seiji Izumisawa told Bloomberg Television on June 21.
MaiaSpace, an ArianeGroup-backed company developing a small reusable rocket, has set a target of 2026. ArianeGroup has not revealed plans for a larger reusable rocket, but ESA’s Linares said at the press conference in June that the agency will “continue to improve and, of course, we are also in Europe working on reuse.”
Younger companies are working much faster. Rocket Lab USA Inc. this year has had eight launches of its Electron, a small rocket that has a first stage that can parachute back to Earth and be recycled. Neutron, scheduled to debut next year, will be able to recycle its first stage and payload fairing (the cone at the tip of the rocket).
“Reusability is an element you must have” to compete commercially, Rocket Lab CEO and founder Peter Beck said in an interview. Reusable rockets and frequent launches “were once aspirational, but are now minimum requirements.”
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While the old guard isn’t moving as quickly, it could still benefit from pent-up demand from customers looking to build or expand their satellite networks. These companies have limited options: They can’t use Russian rockets because of the war in Ukraine, and U.S. restrictions also keep Chinese rockets off limits.
ULA has commitments for more than 70 Vulcan launches, according to the company, including 38 for Amazon’s space internet Project Kuiper. Amazon in 2022 has reserved 18 launches on the Ariane 6.
Avio, which makes boosters for the Ariane 6, is preparing to ramp up production for about 30 launches of the new rocket over the next few years, CEO Giulio Ranzo told analysts in May.
The new European, American and Japanese rockets should also be able to count on government customers who do not want to have sensitive assets launched from other countries and are less concerned about price than private sector companies.
Mitsubishi Heavy’s H3 is not intended to be commercially competitive, said Kazuto Suzuki, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy, as the government is more concerned with having a local option and keeping sensitive technology away. of foreigners.
“You don’t want to release information about your satellite outside of the Japanese security community,” he said.
Ariane 6 will receive at least four missions from public institutions annually, according to an agreement signed by Germany, France and Italy last November.
With sufficient demand from commercial and government customers, the space industry’s old guard will have a role to play, said Hermann Ludwig Moeller, director of the European Space Policy Institute, a Vienna think tank supported by ESA and national space agencies.
The situation is somewhat similar to the auto industry’s transition from fossil fuel-powered cars to electric vehicles, he said, with both types now on the roads.
“Diesel cars have not disappeared from the market, although we have more electric vehicles,” Moeller said. “There will be a period – longer than one might imagine – of different ways of getting things into orbit.”
That should give Europeans time to decide whether there is enough demand to make the leap to reuse, said Philippe Baptiste, CEO of the French space agency Center National d’Etudes Spatiales.
“There’s no point in making a reusable launcher if you don’t have many, many launches to perform,” he said in an interview. “It really depends a lot on the future market.”
–With assistance from Loren Grush.
(Recasts with rocket reaching orbit, updates with launch presenter comments in third paragraph.)
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