The maiden launch of the European Space Agency’s next generation Ariane 6 rocket system now definitely won’t happen until 2024 at the earliest, the agency’s Director General Josef Aschbacher said Tuesday.
Aschbacher said that the ESA, French space agency CNES and rocket developers Arianespace and Ariane Group “confirm that the inaugural launch is now targeted for 2024.”
As earlier reported by POLITICO, the ESA had wanted to get the heavy launcher system ready for use this year, with full commercial operations then starting in 2024. But the program has been subject to significant delays over the last few years.
The rocket had been scheduled to first launch back in 2020.
Without Ariane 6, and with Ariane 5’s retirement already confirmed, SpaceX’s Falcon is the only viable alternative for hauling large satellites, like the EU’s Galileo geo-navigation spacecraft, into orbit.
Because of the delays to Ariane 6, the European Commission wants to contract out launches of its satellites to the likes of SpaceX, but relying on Elon Musk’s rocket company undermines the EU executive’s insistence that it is building strategic autonomy.
SpaceX’s partially reusable rocket technology also gives it a competitive advantage over Ariane 6 before the Europe-made system is even ready.
In an update on the Ariane 6 program also posted Tuesday, the ESA said that it could not complete a short hot firing test — which mimics the environment in space to provide data to operators — of Ariane’s Vulcain 2.1 engine system in a July attempt, with plans to try again on August 29.
Aschbacher said the tentative plan is to carry out a long hot fire test of the assembled core stage and engine on September 26 at the agency’s spaceport in French Guiana.
If those tests are successful, it should then be possible to set a more precise timeline for getting the rocket system ready for launch next year.