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> This article is written as if the delays are some kind of gotcha, but is it really that bitter a pill to swallow? The goal was never to outcompete SpaceX on p
by nordsieck 4y ago
> This article is written as if the delays are some kind of gotcha, but is it really that bitter a pill to swallow? The goal was never to outcompete SpaceX on price.
Sort of.
It's easy to forget, since SpaceX has such dominance over the space industry currently, but commercial space was mostly split between Europe and Russia before SpaceX. The goal of Ariane 6 was to help ArianeGroup maintain its marketshare - particularly of GEO/GTO launches - in the face of aggressive pricing by SpaceX.
> Shopping around for launches now that the Ariane 6 has been delayed isn't some kind of epic defeat in the battle for spaceflight, it's just an inconvenience necessary to keep other projects on track.
I think there may be some missing context here.
There has been a somewhat strong movement to limit European institutional launches to European rockets, in the same way that the DoD/NASA does with US launchers.