HELSINKI — Europe is on the brink of a pivotal moment as the Ariane 6 launch vehicle prepares for its inaugural flight on Tuesday.
Ariane 6 is scheduled to lift off from the Kourou launch site in French Guiana between 14:00–18:00 Eastern (1800–2200 UTC) on July 9. The European Space Agency (ESA) is broadcasting the launch live via ESAWebTV.
Ariane 6’s inaugural flight will feature a 56-meter-long “62” variant equipped with two fixed boosters. The main stage is powered by a Vulcain 2.1 liquid hydrogen and oxygen engine. This is an upgrade from the Vulcain Ariane 5 main engine.
The 62 can carry up to 10.3 tons into low Earth orbit, while the larger “64” with four fixed boosters can lift up to 21.6 tons. However, the first flight will only carry a number of small satellites and experiments from space agencies, companies, research institutes, universities and young professionals.
The first launch follows years of delays. The launcher is designed to replace the venerable and now retired Ariane 5 while keeping costs down. The rocket was previously targeted to take off for the first time in 2020.
Ariane 6’s first launch – given launch vehicle delays, a backlog of 30 orders and Europe’s approach to the space crisis – will be a high-pressure first flight and subsequent first flight for main supplier ArianeGroup, launch service provider Arianespace, ESA and other stakeholders.
“It is crucial for Europe to regain autonomous access to space,” said Hermann Ludwig Moeller, director of the European Space Policy Institute. SpaceNews.
This would warrant the initiation of its own institutional missions. This includes the EU space programme, EUMETSAT weather satellites, ESA missions, security and defense related missions and commercial operator missions, Moeller noted.
Ariane 6 already has 30 launches booked, 18 of which are for the Kuiper constellation in the Amazon.
There is a sense of threat, with plans to increase the number of Ariane flights to nine flights per year as soon as possible, depending on a successful flight.
However, test launches have a high failure rate. “Statistically, there is a 47% chance that the first flight will not be successful or go exactly as planned,” Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s director general, said in May, tempering expectations.
Moeller added that the operational launcher will benefit “space applications such as climate monitoring, improved weather forecasting, banking and time services, secure communications, 5G and the Internet, civil and economic security, including the protection of critical infrastructures in transportation, energy, digital and defense. application.”
“Ariane 6 is a fundamental and necessary prerequisite for the implementation of the wider European space policy and strategy.”
Asked how expendable Ariane 6 and its extensive delays have potentially cost Europe’s space sector, Moeller said: “The main impact, in our view, is that the focus on the launch vehicle crisis has made progress on other documents, and in particular on the accelerated use of space, difficult at the time , when other space powers and commercial enterprises are doing just that, in a race.
“And it is not the Falcon 9 launcher that is most visible in the debate, but the Starlink communications constellation, which every taxi driver knows. It is not too late for Europe to catch up, and IRIS2 is one step in that direction. However, the window of opportunity is now and it will close.”
Due to an unexpected delay between Ariane 5 retirement and Ariane 6 coming online, ESA needed to launch its Euclid space telescope on a Falcon 9 last year, followed by the EarthCARE satellite in May.
In particular, European weather satellite operator Eumetsat announced in late June that it had moved one of its geostationary weather satellites from the Ariane 6 to the Falcon 9. The move, for complex but unexplained reasons, surprised European space officials, according to Eumetsat.
Another development, partly in response to its approach to the space crisis, is Europe seeking to diversify its launch services. An ESA Council resolution of 5 July set out how the ESA-developed Vega would be commercialized by the main supplier, Avio.
The council also authorized the use of the spaceport in French Guiana for four micro- and minilaunchers from European launch service providers Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, PLD Space and Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA).
“These decisions have paved the way for more diverse European launch services in an increasingly competitive environment,” ESA said in a statement.
RFA, in a statement to SpaceNews, called for change. The company’s position is that in the future private industry should build the rockets, while ESA and the EU will procure the service. “The development and operation of Ariane 6 post-launch services will be managed by private industry,” RFA said. Meanwhile, the firm called Ariane 6 a “great pan-European project” and was excited about the launch.
Moeller noted that Europe also needs to look beyond the first launch. “By July 10, Europe needs to shift its focus from launch vehicles to the accelerated use of space in all areas and for the benefit of the entire European economy, for the prosperity of its citizens, the competitiveness of its industries, as well as for the protection of global peace and inspiration for future generations. ”