5 ms·

Ariane 6 is quite heavily subsidized, with ArianeGroup getting €340M per year to operate it [1]. With an expected 10 launches per year, that's about €34M/launch

by Xixi 2y ago

Ariane 6 is quite heavily subsidized, with ArianeGroup getting €340M per year to operate it [1]. With an expected 10 launches per year, that's about €34M/launch. But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter: Europe needs to be able to put its own military satellites (or anything else critical) up there. Military satellites sold to third party countries also won't launch themselves... [1] https://europeanspaceflight.com/arianegroup-to-receive-e340m-per-year-to-operate-ariane-6/ https://europeanspaceflight.com/arianegroup-to-receive-e340m...

Rinzler89 2y ago
>Ariane 6 is quite heavily subsidized All major aerospace companies and projects are heavily subsidized in every country otherwise they would never survive or even be born. Like how much profit did NASA make over its lifetime?
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  NASA is a government agency though, so it doesn't have profit generation as its target. And that's fine, neither does the US army or any other government branch except for the tax office.
- ambicapter 2y ago
  Right? At a certain point, governments are the only entities that can afford to send things to space. "Highly-subsidized" here just means "government is 99% of company's market base".
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    That certain point is in the past. Today, all sorts of private entities send things into space. As launch gets cheaper, private activities in space will dominate, if they don't already.
londons_explore 2y ago
> But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter: Europe needs to be able to put its own military satellites (or anything else critical) up there. Military satellites sold to third party countries also won't launch themselves... I'm very surprised the EU and the USA and SpaceX didn't work out a deal to buy a certain number of F9's to be launched and operated from the EU. The EU would pay a (vey high) price to buy outright the rockets, and would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs.
- CrLf 2y ago
  I think you fail to understand the concept of sovereignty.
- pavlov 2y ago
  > "would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs" Isn't the whole point of Ariane to maintain European capability for independent space launches? It would be very hard to spin that up from nowhere after twenty years of complete inactivity.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > would be very hard to spin that up from nowhere after twenty years of complete inactivity That’s not the only alternative.
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  > The EU would pay a (vey high) price to buy outright the rockets, and would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs. It doesn't seem that surprising given the terms.
- close04 2y ago
  > The EU would pay a (vey high) price to buy outright the rockets, and would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs. So the worst of both worlds? It would still be very expensive, but also dependent on a foreign entity and with hands tied for the next decades unable to develop people, skills, or products in that direction.

by Xixi 2y ago

Rinzler89 2y ago

>Ariane 6 is quite heavily subsidized All major aerospace companies and projects are heavily subsidized in every country otherwise they would never survive or even be born. Like how much profit did NASA make over its lifetime?

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
NASA is a government agency though, so it doesn't have profit generation as its target. And that's fine, neither does the US army or any other government branch except for the tax office.
ambicapter 2y ago
Right? At a certain point, governments are the only entities that can afford to send things to space. "Highly-subsidized" here just means "government is 99% of company's market base".
- pfdietz 2y ago
  That certain point is in the past. Today, all sorts of private entities send things into space. As launch gets cheaper, private activities in space will dominate, if they don't already.

londons_explore 2y ago

> But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter: Europe needs to be able to put its own military satellites (or anything else critical) up there. Military satellites sold to third party countries also won't launch themselves... I'm very surprised the EU and the USA and SpaceX didn't work out a deal to buy a certain number of F9's to be launched and operated from the EU. The EU would pay a (vey high) price to buy outright the rockets, and would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs.

CrLf 2y ago
I think you fail to understand the concept of sovereignty.
pavlov 2y ago
> "would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs" Isn't the whole point of Ariane to maintain European capability for independent space launches? It would be very hard to spin that up from nowhere after twenty years of complete inactivity.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > would be very hard to spin that up from nowhere after twenty years of complete inactivity That’s not the only alternative.
The_Colonel 2y ago
> The EU would pay a (vey high) price to buy outright the rockets, and would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs. It doesn't seem that surprising given the terms.
close04 2y ago
> The EU would pay a (vey high) price to buy outright the rockets, and would agree not to develop a competing rocket design in the next 20 yrs. So the worst of both worlds? It would still be very expensive, but also dependent on a foreign entity and with hands tied for the next decades unable to develop people, skills, or products in that direction.