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Your numbers paint a very positive picture of Ariane 6 which I don't think is justified: >Ariane 6 is expected to cost €75 million for 5 tonnes to GTO There a
by HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
Your numbers paint a very positive picture of Ariane 6 which I don't think is justified:
>Ariane 6 is expected to cost €75 million for 5 tonnes to GTO
There are a lot of GEO sats which are right at the 5 ton range so that leaves no room for a dual launch.
>Because Ariane uses a "dual-berth" conops, it (generally) flies two payloads per launch, whereas Falcon 9's excess capacity is usually left unused.
Dual launches come with a lot of issues of coordination which crop up all the time and result in delayed launches for Ariane. Also Falcon 9's excess capacity is left unused because no one has ever asked for it. Per Musk's words they could develop a bigger fairing if a customer payed for it but no one has asked for it.
>The two rockets are thus of comparable cost to a satellite customer, with pros and cons for each
No they are not. There is literally no pro for Ariane. It's more expensive and the most important thing is that the engine is not restartable so it literally can't do a direct GEO no matter the payload penalty. That results in satellites requiring more powerful and complicated thrusters and having to sacrifice part of the capacity for extra fuel instead of just altitude correcting thrusters. All of this translates into extra cost.
>Ariane is more reliable
This is a complete myth for the media. Ariane 5's reliability means nothing for Ariane 6. One of the early Ariane 5 launch failures was due to the use of Ariane 4's software but not modified. On the other hand falcon 9 is now frozen and at this rate will have about the same launches Ariane 5 had in it's entire lifetime but only in a couple of years.
>The worry is that Ariane 6 won't be competitive with future rockets, like New Glenn or BFR.
Ariane 6 was competitive with the non-reusable falcon 9 at 90m$. The bet the European industry made was that SpaceX wouldn't be able to make an economically meaningful reusable rocket but every design choice on the falcon 9 has benefited reusability( number of engines, cost structure etc).