A few years ago, the European space agency Esa made the transition to the new launch vehicle Ariane 6 Probably even easier to imagine: The first flight had already been announced for 2020, when Esa decided to place an order for the last ten Ariane 5-Retract missiles. A slack in the satellite market and price pressure from Elon Musk’s rocket maker Space-X pointed to falling demand. Manufacturers such as Augsburg-based MT Aerospace, which builds tanks for the rocket, had to lay off employees.
In the meantime, Esa could make good use of the ten canceled missiles: since they didn’t have any because of Russia’s attack on Ukraine Soyuzrockets, five tax-funded missions, including satellites for the Galileo navigation system and the space telescope, are no longer able to be transported into space Euclid. The latter is now scheduled for 2023 with a Falcon 9 start from Space-X. The last three Ariane-5rockets are already reserved for other satellites, such as the Esa Jupiter probe juice as well as the first Meteosat-Third generation weather satellites. And the Esa rocket Vega-C is only suitable for smaller satellites.
That Esa announced on Wednesday evening that Ariane 6 Not being able to start until the fourth quarter due to technical delays and the pandemic doesn’t make things any better. In addition to the surprising large order from the Internet group Amazon, which in April for its Internet satellite system Kuiper 18 launches with the Ariane 6 had booked, the launch service provider Arianespace already has eleven more flights on the launch list, as its boss Stéphane Israël said. “Competition is increasing, but the good news is that the market is growing too.” But the new start date is also uncertain: “With a project of this magnitude, it must be clear that this is a planned date and that the program still has to achieve a number of important milestones successfully and on time for this schedule to remain valid,” said ESA boss Josef Aschbacher as a precaution.
“We want to make sure that anything that could go wrong doesn’t happen.”
Milestones include testing of the Vinci upper stage engine in Lampoldshausen and the Ariane-Prototypes on the launch pad in Kourou/French Guiana. Ariane Group boss André-Hubert Roussel said he did not want to risk the safety of the flight just to avoid another possible delay of a few weeks. “Yes, things have taken more time than we expected,” he said. “We want to make sure that anything that could go wrong doesn’t happen.” The rockets for the first three Ariane-6According to Roussel, flights are already being built, but so is the asteroid mission herathe 2024 with the Ariane 6 should start, the Esa has just clicked on one Falcon 9 rebooked.
That the first flight of the Ariane 6 delayed again, also has an impact on the Galileo satellite navigation system. The last ten first-generation satellites are still on the ground, two of which should be connected to one in the spring Soyuz launch into Earth orbit. Esa director Javier Benedicto said on Friday that this will end in 2023 with the second Ariane 6 should be started. It’s getting more than tight. If this is not possible, consider options with a non-European missile. The boss of the manufacturer of the first Galileo generation OHB, Marco Fuchs, already had that in the spring Falcon 9 brought into play. So far, however, this has been avoided. The launch of the second Galileo generation is also likely to be delayed. Their development can only begin when generation one can offer the full service. However, two to four satellites are still required for this, according to Esa. As of Thursday, only 22 of 28 were fully operational in orbit. The concept envisages 30 satellites including six spare units. The two stranded Galileosatellites are to be brought back to OHB in Bremen for professional storage.