Despite the smiles displayed, it was time for caution, Wednesday, October 19, at the headquarters of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Paris. The general manager, the Austrian Josef Aschbacher, announced a new shift of the inaugural flight of Ariane-6. It will not take place before the fourth quarter of 2023, subject to the test campaign taking place as planned. “It is a planned date and the program will still have to achieve a number of key milestones in succession and in due time for this timetable to remain valid”he warned.
This is not the first postponement for the European rocket since the project was launched in December 2014. It was then a question of reacting quickly to the offensive of Elon Musk who, with SpaceX, broke the launch prices in reducing them by more than 40%. The new entrant put an end to the European-Russian duopoly formed by Ariane and Proton by changing the fundamentals of the market: high fares justified by flight safety.
The Europeans then gave themselves six years to develop Ariane-6, more flexible to use and above all 40% to 50% cheaper than Ariane-5. The maiden flight was planned for July 21, 2020, the anniversary of man’s first steps on the Moon during the 1969 Apollo-11 mission.
Very quickly, however, with the first setbacks, this date was forgotten. The Covid-19 pandemic worsened the situation during 2020. Never mind, a new deadline was put forward for the end of 2021, also postponed by several months. But in the spring, unforeseen difficulties arose to which were added delays in the firing tests of the upper stage of the rocket on the site of the German space agency (DLR) in Lampoldshausen.
Additional costs caused by delays
However, since Monday, October 17, the entire launcher has been assembled on its launch pad at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou. This model will not fly, but will be used to test all the interfaces and communications between the rocket and its launch pad. The tests must make it possible to check the flight software, that of the control benches, as well as the operations of filling and emptying the tanks.
These new deadlines increase the cost of the program – it was initially estimated at around 4 billion euros. Daniel Neuenschwander, in charge of launchers at ESA, mentioned an additional cost of 600 million euros. States would have pledged 400 million. It therefore remains to find 200 million by the next ESA ministerial conference, scheduled for November.
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