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It’s unfortunate that Ariane 6 already has no realistic chance of being price competitive with Space X. However it’s great that they are doing something still a
by the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
It’s unfortunate that Ariane 6 already has no realistic chance of being price competitive with Space X. However it’s great that they are doing something still as competition is what will push us forward.
- janc_ 3y agothere might be circumstances where it is price competitive in the market (certainly when launched from Kourou vs. the US).
- asadotzler 3y agoI don't think so. ArianeSpace's best price for an Ariane 6 launch, with all the subsidies applied, is gonna be around $75 million, maybe more. SpaceX's sticker is $67 million for Falcon 9 and they've been known to come down $10 million or even more to win an important contract (while still preserving fairly healthy profit margins). I don't think there is a single case where a customer would pick Ariane 6 over Falcon 9 except for political reasons.
- rq1 3y agoAnd your prices don’t even take into account the difference in payloads. (Favorable to Falcon) The price/kg is 3-4x higher for Ariane.
- janc_ 3y agoThere is also launch windows etc. Not everyone can or wants to wait forever. And IIRC Ariane 6 can also bring up somewhat heavier payloads because they launch from closer to the equator?
- GuB-42 3y agoThat's not the point, even if they would like to of course. The main point is for Europe to have launch capabilities and maintain their skills. That's also the reason why ESA is so inefficient, they are here mostly because of politics. If it wasn't for that, they would have used US, Russian or Chinese rockets. I suspect that the US gave a heavy push to SpaceX (they saved them from bankruptcy in the early days) because they were in the same situation with NASA. SpaceX was their chance, and they took it, they are also keeping an eye on Blue Origin, because who knows what will happen next.
- jacquesm 3y agoThe big difference is that ESA is essentially a government entity, much like NASA. To compare NASA and SpaceX would fail for much the same reasons, they are simply not the same kind of entity. As far as I know NASA currently doesn't have any launch capability of their own, it is all through commercial suppliers.
- Yizahi 3y agoAlso looking at the recent article about internal ESA issues, it seems that it is very corrupted by the lack of external control (being exteritorial corporation) and two tier "caste" system. I'm imagining a fossilized organization, where higher caste is busy engaged in the internal politics, securing their positions and preventing lower caste to gaining any benefits, suppressing any good ideas from the lower rank employees to prevent them showing you are not good enough. Not saying that all them are like that, but even some significant amount can grind whole company to a halt. Throw in malicious compliance, bureaucracy etc. and we have a picture.
- qwytw 3y ago> The big difference is that ESA is essentially a government entity, much like NASA The relationship between ESA and Arianespace is not necessarily that fundamentally different to that of NASA and SpaceX. Arianespace is only partially state owned (it's a join venture of two publicaclly traded companies) and in some ways it was the SpaceX of the 80s and 90s.Ariane 4 was very competitive and at some point had the majority of the commercial satellite launch market. Of course like the rest of Europe stagnation has set in and it was left behind over the last 10-20 years.
- rq1 3y agoAfter checking the Falcon rockets stats… that's really impressive. They had more successful launches in 7 years than Ariane in its whole history. It seems that this rocket is not yet out and operational but already “obsolete”. I guess this is the price for independence. Or wrong incentives.
- xwolfi 3y agoOr payload size ?
- andersa 3y agoWhy haven't they started working on reusable rockets the second SpaceX showed us it could be done?
- usrusr 3y agoI think they did. But that does not mean they drop everything they already have much further in the pipeline as if launch capability between now and whenever they have caught up wasn't part of what they are paid for.
- signatoremo 3y agoThey did not. Ariane 6 started mid 2010s timeframe, when Falcon 9 had became successfully reusable. They continued to spout nonsense such as reusability would keep rocket factory idle. Europe won’t have reusable rocket until 2030s at the earliest, almost 20 years after SpaceX https://europeanspaceflight.com/europe-will-introduce-a-reusable-launch-vehicle-in-the-2030s-says-arianespace-ceo/ https://europeanspaceflight.com/europe-will-introduce-a-reus...
- hef19898 3y agoI really, really shoupd have kept that study offline somewhere... Back the day, before SpaceX came along a serious launch provider, ESA conducted a study on the financial viability of reuseable rockets. The conclusion was, that they are viabke, technically feasible but only financially interestung with a number of launches per year for which there was no demand. SpaceX for sure is launching a lot of their own Starlink satellites...
- jve 3y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/syal5p/about_smart_reuse_from_tory_bruno/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/syal5p/about_... > Breakeven in 2 to 3 flights But then, 7 days ago he posted on https://www.reddit.com/r/ula/comments/17wos9u/tory_bruno_ceo_of_ula_vulcan_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ula/comments/17wos9u/tory_bruno_ceo... > As I have said before, propulsive fly-back generally requires an average reuse of 10x per booster, which has been achieved. So maybe it is difference between SMART (catch by helicopter) re-use and propulsive landing But he does acknowledge in comments that reuse can improve launch cadence.
- ekianjo 3y ago> Ariane 6 At this stage Ariane is just a money-burning program to create jobs that are supported only for political purposes. makes no financial sense at all, it's all obsolete tech.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xwolfi 3y agoBut how will Europe be independent of its adversaries like the US, Russia or China without it ? It's like, yeah it's not bleeding edge, but to deploy our military satellites it's better than nothing, isn't it ? Why spit on it, imagine the situation was reversed, you'd be happy NASA had some sort of alternative to China to launch stuff no ?
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago> imagine the situation was reversed I find that the exact same people who place free market above all social concerns, will happily give up quite a lot for national security, but sneer when others do the same.
- ekianjo 3y agoSince when has Europe been independent militarily speaking? Ever heard of NATO?
- xwolfi 3y agoBut you're talking very generally: we are independent militarily: if the US attack us, we can attempt a defense. If Afghanistan could free itself eventually, I'm sure we can find a way as well. My country has nukes (and owns the territory launching Ariane rockets) and NATO can't tell us what to do with them. NATO is not a US-controlled army defending Europe. It's a collaborative alliance to scare a bit anyone trying to invade us, but it's not gonna do us any good if the US decide to become crazy or if one of their critical allies attack us and they don't want to risk it.
- 3y ago
- Octoth0rpe 3y ago> It’s unfortunate that Ariane 6 already has no realistic chance of being price competitive with Space X The difference between the two looks a lot smaller when one considers the total price including the payload. 800M satellite + 75M for an Ariane 6 versus 800M satellite + 65M for a Falcon is, well, not quite a rounding error, but probably within the acceptable margin for keeping it in the European family for many projects.
- AdamJacobMuller 3y agoFalcon 9 payload is way more than that of Ariane 6. Ariane 62 (smaller variant, the one which costs 75M) has an LEO delivery capacity of ~10,000kg. Falcon 9 has a fully expended capacity of ~23,000kg and a reusable capacity of ~19,000 kg. Cost per kg on Ariane is unfortunately going to be more than double Falcon 9.
- manquer 3y agoShouldn't we be comparing Ariane 6 with Starship not falcon 9? Starship is in similar stage of development and by the time A6 comes online it will compete with Starship not falcon .
- AdamJacobMuller 3y agoThat's difficult since I don't think anyone at SpaceX has talked about Starship launch costs and it's even more difficult because the comparison will be even worse for Ariane.
- solarkraft 3y agoWell, Elon has been making crazy claims, of course. "Orders of magnitude" and so on.
- AdamJacobMuller 3y agoFor Falcon 9, the costs and payloads aren't just claims. You can go to SpaceX today and buy a flight. For Starship, it's an in-development rocket with a focus on novel technology as well as cost engineering. Orders of magnitude cheaper is a great goal but it's impossible to know if or when SpaceX can achieve it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yread 3y agoit is price competitive with SLS
- palemoonale 3y agoSo SpaceX is in the blacks? Last time i checked they still lose money and rely on gov subsidies / contracts... Ofc, then it is easy to say a corp is cost-competetive. https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/08/27/despite-rare-profit-spacex-still-mostly-loses-cash/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/08/27/despite-rare-profi...
- dash2 3y agoCost-competitiveness isn't about your total profit, or about whether your customers include governments. It's about how much it costs to launch a rocket.
- pelorat 3y agoThey are spending money to make more money later.
- mcpackieh 3y ago> subsidies e.g. the government giving them free money just so they can continue to exist? SpaceX does not survive on subsidies. > contracts Doing work in exchange for money? Yes, that's how SpaceX survives. That's the way any rocket company is supposed to survive, yet you're construing this as somehow a bad thing. Seems like a sad case of EDS.