> but the role isn’t to produce the most price competitive launch Except that is of course what they promised when the Ariane 6 was authorized. The 'we need to

> but the role isn’t to produce the most price competitive launch Except that is of course what they promised when the Ariane 6 was authorized. The 'we need to be competitive with the Falcon 9 so we can use the international launch market to subsidize our space program' was very much a huge part why the Ariane 6 was picked over the Ariane 5 ME. So in effect Ariane Group is getting 5 billion $ to slighly evolve the Ariane 5 (with mostly things that we planned for the Ariane 5 ME). In effect, not having to relay on Sozus as much is actually closer to what Ariane 6 achieves. Having both the 62 and 64 variant will make it more flexible then Ariane 5.