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UK - the only country to achieve to-orbit capability only to shelve it after the first flight.
by actionfromafar 10mo ago
UK - the only country to achieve to-orbit capability only to shelve it after the first flight.
- fsh 10mo agoAs an ESA member state, the UK has had launch capabilities via Arianespace for a couple of decades.
- rsynnott 10mo agoFrance essentially did that too, in favour of the ESA (I think the French launcher may have had a couple launches, but certainly no more than ten).
- etiennebausson 10mo agoFrance has its own agency, the CNES (though most research go through ESA nowaday), and had it for a long time. Its launchers are still the best when it comes to reliability I believe, though not competitive on cost anymore since the advent of spaceX (Ariane6's first flight was in 2024 and its price per kilogram is just an order of magnitude worse than spaceX). Definitely missed a step. Still, France has an active and ongoing space program since about 1970.
- rsynnott 10mo agoThe Ariane family is, at least formally, ESA, not CNES, tho. The UK also has its own agency, but launches via ESA (or private). I think it would be probably fair to say that Ariane is more French than anything else, but it’s not strictly a French project. Confusingly, the EU also has its own agency, though it doesn’t, as far as I can see, do much outside of operating Galileo. ESA, though obviously very EU aligned, isn’t an EU agency, and has non-EU/EEA/former-EU members (notably, _Canada_).