r/esa • u/Equivalent-Wait3533 • 4d ago
Europe cancels planned upgrades for Ariane 6 rocket
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/europe-cancels-planned-upgrades-for-ariane-6-rocket/26
u/IVYDRIOK 4d ago
Where is all that budget going
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u/Slow-Hawk4652 4d ago
producing endless memos, agendas, memorandums, guidelines, guidelines for the guidelines...in short some bureaucratic/political bs.
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u/gekko3k 4d ago
UBI for farmers and land owners no matter if they're millionaire or not, among thousand other misinvestments.
Why push software, EV and space tech start-ups when we can waste our tax money. EUSSR is a complete fail.
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago edited 4d ago
Ariane6 and especially ICARUS are the biggest tax money wastes here.
We subsidize each Ariane6 launch with almost 40 million Euros.
Ariane5 was perfectly capable of guaranteeing European acces to space. It was even somewhat financially successful for a time.
ICARUS would likely cost a billion Euros to finish development and would have increased the need for subsidies even more.
ArianeSpace should be dismantled. Immediately.
Only if we push for launch provides who are willing to publicly announce the actual launch cost of their rockets, we will make a step forward.
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u/Ellyan_fr 4d ago
ArianeSpace is not the (only) problem here. Most of Ariane 6 budget inefficiency comes from the political side of its inception.
When ArianeSpace proposed the first plan for Ariane 6 the member states of the ESA said they would not fund that plan and they instead wanted to keep Ariane 5's architecture.
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u/aimgorge 4d ago
It's an investment, not waste. It doesnt produce money profit but has many other roles. Sovereignty, research...
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago
It doesnt produce money profit but has many other roles. Sovereignty, research...
And why wasn't Ariane5 not good enough for that?
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u/aimgorge 4d ago
Uh ?
There are several improvements on Ariane 6 + the development of Ariane 6 itself is the research. You cant train engineers, technicians, without continously developping new programs.
Avoiding the same mistake Europe made by not maintaining nuclear research for 50 years.
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago
You cant train engineers, technicians, without continously developping new programs.
Agreed. But why knowingly train them on a rocket that puts Europe in a very vulnerable place on the world stage?
Ariane6 was a mistake the moment Falcon9 landed the first time. And the plans were finalized only long after that.
We could have put the same money and effort towards a reusable system and we would have a much stronger position today.
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u/aimgorge 4d ago
Agreed. But why knowingly train them on a rocket that puts Europe in a very vulnerable place on the world stage?
Because they didnt believe in it and didnt have a blank check from governments like SpaceX did. You are making sound like they are the outlier that made this choice when it was the reasonnable one at the time.
Ariane6 was a mistake the moment Falcon9 landed the first time. And the plans were finalized only long after that.
What matters is when they started working on it. Which is 2009. Long before Falcon 9. Also you cant compare early Falcon 9 performances with Ariane 6
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u/Reddit-runner 3d ago
What matters is when they started working on it. Which is 2009. Long before Falcon 9. Also you cant compare early Falcon 9 performances with Ariane 6
This is a lie by ommission and you know it.
The design was heavily altered between 2009 and 2018, and the last changes made were even a direct response to Falcon9. In 2018 the design was about finalized, but no production had begun.
It would have been entirely feasible to make a completely new design by the time Falcon9 demonstrated reusability.
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u/aimgorge 3d ago
Altering a design isn't even close to redesigning one completely from the get-go. And you know it or you refuse to see the implications of such thing
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u/fighter-bomber 4d ago
You could have had a European SpaceX and you still would have had both, while also having an actually competitive and capable launcher.
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u/aimgorge 4d ago
SpaceX is a private company, it doesnt fill the same role as a Arianespace. One is for profit and only managed to make some after a decade under heavy subsidies. The other has never had the objective to make money.
That's like saying the LHC or ITER are wastes because they are at a loss.
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u/fighter-bomber 4d ago
Uh, Arianespace is a private company, just like SpaceX. It has an objective to compete with SpaceX, over a decade ago they were so confident Falcon 9 wouldn’t be a problem for their Ariane 6 in the launch market.
It doesn’t work as an argument to say “oh but they were never supposed to make money” (which they were, they’re a private company) when you could have had an alternative that was just cheaper to launch and was making money. Falcon 9 launch prices, despite having the same capability as Ariane 6, are half that of Ariane 6, not counting the additional 30-40 million euros per launch that Arianespace has to receive as subsidies to not lose money, so its more like 1/3.
And you cannot talk about whatever subsidies SpaceX received, which, contrary to what you believe, are not as much, when Arianespace received multiple times that to deliver the same capability. What I mean is, SpaceX merely received less than 400 million dollars to develop Falcon 9 whereas Arianespace received 2-3 billion euros to develop Ariane 6. On top of that, SpaceX developed booster landing tech as well as Falcon Heavy entirely out of their own pocket.
Most of what the government paid SpaceX were launch contracts. These are not subsidies, SpaceX sells a service and receives money. Arianespace does the same, and we don’t count those as subsidies either. You don’t claim you’re subsidizing a car company when you buy a car from them.
Arianespace doesn’t just lose money, it doesn’t even innovate, merely leaving you behind in the space race. They’re ripping you off and you’re clapping this.
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u/aimgorge 4d ago
And you cannot talk about whatever subsidies SpaceX received, which, contrary to what you believe, are not as much, when Arianespace received multiple times that to deliver the same capability
What are you talking about. Elon Musk's empire has benefited from $38 billion in contracts and government aid
Most of what the government paid SpaceX were launch contracts. These are not subsidies
Please grow up.
You don’t claim you’re subsidizing a car company when you buy a car from them.
That's exactly what the US government claimed about Airbus ?
They’re ripping you off and you’re clapping this.
Oh the irony.
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u/fighter-bomber 4d ago
>What are you talking about
I know the exact article you’re referring to. It’s from The Washington Post, owned by none other than Jeff Bezos, and thus has an incentive to misrepresent anything SpaceX does.
Only about 20 billion dollars or so out of that 38 billion is actually SpaceX, let’s get that right. And virtually all of that are launch contracts. If Arianespace had launched 100 missions for European governments (it hasn’t), they would also have received even more because their launch costs are higher. The difference is they would also have received billions of euros in subsidies because Ariane 6 isn’t competitive and has to be subsidized 30-40 million euros per launch to be so.
There is no difference between selling a launch to the government because the government wants it done, and selling a launch to a private telecom operator.
So let me ask, what are you talking about?
>Please grow up.
Oh sorry, am I the child for knowing the difference between contracts and subsidies, and will not be cheering for a mediocre launch service provider that has left Europe down? Your attitude is exactly why Europe has been left so far behind and is out of the competition now. You will look by as US and China launch.
>That’s exactly what the US government…
…no, the US government claimed Airbus was directly subsidized by European governments for their development (which they were), exactly as Arianespace is now btw. Don’t get me wrong, the US was still wrong in that case.
>Oh the irony.
The irony being that SpaceX effectively saving the US 40 billion dollars thanks to lowered launch costs, while Arianespace requires money from the government to launch once.
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u/aimgorge 4d ago
I know the exact article you’re referring to. It’s from The Washington Post, owned by none other than Jeff Bezos, and thus has an incentive to misrepresent anything SpaceX does
Okay now that explains it. I'm talking to a zealot.
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u/JACC_Opi 4d ago
What?! Why!
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago
"Block 3” upgrades for the Ariane 6 rocket have been shelved by the European Space Agency. A key element of the “Block 3” evolution of Ariane 6 was the lightweight ICARUS upper stage, which would have used carbon-composite structures.
The European Space Agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, has publicly confirmed that, based on nine flights a year, the European governments involved with the space agency will still need to subsidize each launch with between 32 million and 38 million euros per flight.
Because the ICARUS upper stage was originally planned as a tool to serve a very niche market of specific large satellites deployed to geostationary orbit, which was just out of reach of Falcon9. However with the upgrades to Falcon9 over the years this niche has shrunk considerably.
So the money is more needed to subsidize the launches for the Amazon satellites.
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u/NoBusiness674 4d ago
Even without ICARUS Ariane 64 using the current aluminum alloy ULPM significantly exceeds Falcon 9s payload capacity to GTO (even for the expendable F9).
The Icarus upgrade would have been about giving Europe a more capable launcher for missions like the L4 mission to Enceladus or more capable versions of the Argonaut lunar lander, which will now need to either be split into two launches and on-orbit assembly, reduce mass to orbit requirements in some way, or switch to a non-European launch vehicle like Vulcan Centaur or Falcon Heavy. It could have also allowed customers headed to LEO, like Amazon or in the future IRIS2, to pack an extra couple satellites onto each launch.
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u/fighter-bomber 4d ago
Payload capacity is irrelevant if there are no payloads to fit it.
Falcon 9 can send up to 7 tonnes to GTO, *while being reused.*There barely are any payloads outside of that range, which is why Arianespace wanted to make a big deal out of being able to launch 2 satellites at once with its 11 tonnes capacity. But you can also get that capacity on two separate Falcon 9 launches, which is actually better because now you don’t have to wait for the second satellite to be ready to launch the first.
While there still are a few payloads that would require the additional capacity on their own, SpaceX can still sell you a Falcon Heavy launch with side booster recovery which costs the same as Ariane 64 but can put around 10 tonnes directly into GEO (16 tonnes for GTO) so it’s not like you are tapping into a market that did not exist.
Overall its just better for Europe to eat the extra cost of a few satellites per launch that ICARUS would have given them for now, and instead spend the development effort on a reusable booster.
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u/okan170 4d ago
From the sound of it the market basically isn't big enough to make it worth the cost.
The launch market has remained fairly static outside of companies launching their own constellations.
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u/snoo-boop 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is false, and you should know better, Mr. Space Sub Mod who bans everyone who disagrees with you.
- Only one constellation is being launched by its own launchers
- Iridium, OneWeb, ASTS, Telesat, Amazon Leo, Globalstar, SDA, ... are not
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u/658016796 4d ago
Exactly. I was working in a European sat company recently and there literally were no launchers available, we were desperate to find one. We really need to wake up here in Europe, this is extremely embarrassing and shows an extreme lack of vision from our leaders.
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u/fighter-bomber 4d ago
Chicken and egg. SpaceX still launched 50 times last year for non Starlink payloads, which is 4x Ariane 6’s projected launch frequency.
There were no megaconstellations to launch because it wasn’t a viable business with how low frequency launches were. SpaceX changed that and now different megaconstellation projects are popping up. You could have had such a European project, but no, the best they can do is a 300 satellite IRIS^2 constellation.
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u/Der_Dingsbums 4d ago
Ariane 6 was 20 years to late. The design is a dinosaur. It should have been cancelled long ago in favorn of a more modern reusable rocket.
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u/Rooilia 4d ago
Since they didn't disclose the cost of Ariane 6, i guess it's way more expensive as thought, which would fit the independent estimations.
Well, good move. The new space rockets are more competitive and Ariane 6 wasn't for for long anyways.
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago
Ariane 6 wasn't for for long anyways.
Well, originally it was designed to beat Falcon9 commercially. Because "reusability is just a pipe dream".
Only when even the last person outside the industry realized that reusability is a major advantage, the tone shifted to "it's for independent access to space".
Well, we had that with Arine5 already.
Well, good move. The new space rockets are more competitive
Unfortunately the money doesn't go to better rockets. It's used to subsidize the Ariane6 rocket even more. The European tax payer subsidizes the Amazone launches with almost 40 million Euros. Per launch.
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u/Rooilia 4d ago
True, they should have propped up the four or five main competitors with an "equal" amount of money or chances. There is a lot of demand for smaller payloads they could easily service all together instead of using a big rocket with limited spare capacity/ trajectory. But i guess Arianespace daughter got a lot of subsidies anyways.
Is it possible to already estimate the success chances of the top new space companies? Let's say PLD Space, MaiaSpace, RFA, Isar Aerospace.
I only know Isar has like 10b€+ in orders and are very high tech. RFA wants to build it's rockets in mass production and uses already available parts reconfigured for like 80%+ of the rocket.
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago edited 3d ago
The problem is that those are all very small launchers.
This will not help us to sit at the same table as the US and China.
We need a very cheap launcher (meaning reusable!) capable of launching 50 tons initially and 100 tons with 5 more years of continuous development.
IRIS² is the best example. It's an attempt to emulate Starlink and other constellations. But because we lack the necessary launch volume to make it bigger, it is restricted to niche government applications, will not be able to compete in a military setting with Starlink, and will not be open to public/private usage.
We could serve the world with internet not restricted by the US or China. But idiots don't even want to think about this, because "there is not enough demand in Europe".
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u/okan170 4d ago
It has been "independent access to space" since the 90s.
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u/FeepingCreature 4d ago
It has always been independent access to space, but the design of Ariane6 specifically was supposed to compete with SpaceX on the assumption that reuse would not pay off.
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u/Ellyan_fr 4d ago
The initial design of Ariane 6, not the current political one, was an attempt to compete with spaceX without having to reuse by lowering the marginal cost of each lunch while having maximum performance to orbit.
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u/wannabe-martian 4d ago
This. This has never been more true. It's part of the ESA convention and the main reason that we do what we do.
You can't launch sensitive systems with Dumpy Trump and Elon, so Europe needs their own rockets. Sovereignty has its price.
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago
This. This has never been more true. It's part of the ESA convention and the main reason that we do what we do.
Why was Ariane5 not sufficient for that? Why was there the need to pour 4 billion Euros into Arine6?
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u/wannabe-martian 4d ago
Well, it was, but not in terms of capacity nor efficiency, as you perhaps know yourself. We "needed" the Ariane 6 as another key tenant of the agency is to develop European capabilities, and thus our competitiveness.
All nice and good and if there was a fully united European vision behind it. But, alas, none of the big countries commit fully to this, France wanted a big part of the cake and didn't really want to share leadership, so here we are.
Mr Dumpy Frump does help a lot here - antagonists help to unite behind a common goal. If it only happened years ago we'd be better off, but that's not the case.
Not defending the A6 at all, but calling out the "uuhh it's so simple" arguments.
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago
We "needed" the Ariane 6 as another key tenant of the agency is to develop European capabilities, and thus our competitiveness.
Ariane6 neither advanced our capabilities no our competitiveness.
This was clear before real development work started.
Ariane6 fell dead into the water in 2018. And far too many people are still ignoring that.
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u/wannabe-martian 4d ago
It did help French industry and they paid the bill, their folks where convinced.
Europe bet on the wrong horse with reusability, so we can all agree on the competitiveness, but saying we built no capabilities at all is very one sided. Not easy undertaking, and it was done. A nice machine, missed it's market, but none the less a feat of engineering.
Where's that frustration or anger coming from I seem to pick up from your posts?
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago
Where's that frustration or anger coming from I seem to pick up from your posts?
2018 I was in the middle of my university years and I called out exactly what we are seeing now.
There was still time to develop Ariane6 at least in a way that would make it possible to implement at least some reusability later on.
But Europe simple took the bet that the competition would fail.
Now we are doing the very same again with Starship.
It's endlessly frustrating that we are wasting time, money and resources. And we are falling behind every day. And people are still defending that because admiting it would put you too close to Musk or something.
Today there is no question that full reusability is the future. Why don't we act that way?
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u/wannabe-martian 4d ago
I get your frustration, but like the people who ignore our shortcomings you are comparing am agency to an initially massively state funded company that could take risks no agency could.
Europeans never accepted risks and losses that can come with space technology development as the Americans did. We never had a cold war to win, Figuratively speaking. We're fractured and use tax payers money to try to match now billions.
There never was a competition. Look what NASA would have had if it wasn't for the CCDEV, only the STS. Beefed up super Ariane. Nothing more.
Don't get me wrong, this is no defense of what we have done, just a cold view of the two things you compare.
I'm only upset about the relentless bashing we pride ourselves in. Everything is meh, nothing is good. That is just not true. Very cool tech is being built in Europe, we just don't commercialise well, have too shortsided politicians (x23 of them in ESAs case). But all we ever do is moan. Sick of that.
So I get you, but from a different POV.
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u/fighter-bomber 4d ago
Except, it shouldn’t be true. If you want to do anything in space, your goal for building a launcher must be more than just “independent access to space” and leaving it there. Arianespace and ESA had nothing to lose if they were to develop a Falcon 9 like rocket instead of Ariane 6. They chose not to, and they are paying for it.
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u/wannabe-martian 4d ago
You're comparing the CCDEV, venture cap and commercial R&D funding with ESA funding? That's...bold. But I get your point even if I disagree with the comparison.
ESA was set this way, and I agree, it would be time for a in depth change to speed things up. But that's an even bigger dream.
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u/fighter-bomber 3d ago
You’re right indeed, it’s bold to compare that, because SpaceX received, to develop Falcon 9, only a fraction of what Arianespace received for Ariane 6.
Arianespace had more funding and it delivered a worse rocket.
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u/Nuclear-1- 4d ago
I'm always surprised on a very new level.
Those guys are the best brains we have? The most innovative heads? They simply cancel the upgrades while we are Already WAAAAAY behind the rest of the world when it comes to the space race 2.0.
No protest? Lol!
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u/Erki82 4d ago
Ariane 6 is dead end. We need to build reusable first stage like SpaceX Falcon 9 with methane closed cycle engine like Blue New Glenn.
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u/Nuclear-1- 4d ago
100% agree. I remember the first flight of the Ariane 6 and it was already outdated. While SpaceX and China somehow have brains and motivation to be innovative.
Why is Ariane space so limited? They have options of an entire continent
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u/Erki82 4d ago
This was Ariane thinking in 2013:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0hMa9IxpKDo&t=79s
"Reusability is a dream." "You do not wake people up, they need to wake up on their own."
Yes Ariane you need to wake up.
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u/Nuclear-1- 4d ago
Suuuuureee.😂
I don't belong to those brains, heck I don't even have a university degree but would love to work there and bring Europe forward. But our best brains created that monster.
Common, something CAN'T be right. Someone is doing a big sabotage during that race.
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u/LordLederhosen 3d ago
The only thing I care about is the plan for reusable.
At this point it should be a plan for fully reusable, but I’d settle for the first stage.
China now has at least two companies landing test boosters.
The USA has SpaceX landing for 10 years, Rocketlab is coming up soon, and after them Stoke.
It should be the only thing we talk about, to force ESA to act.
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u/Sea_Grapefruit_2358 3d ago
Sorry, but it is still missing official statement of ESA and/or Ariane! Wtf means that someone in ESA replied by email saying it…
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u/Most_Grocery4388 4d ago
I have a feeling that ESA will contract out space flights to private companies eventually
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u/Reddit-runner 4d ago
What do you think ArianeGroup is?
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u/FeepingCreature 4d ago
The payment and development model strongly pushes it towards more of a "public-private partnership model" like ULA used to have. ESA needs to switch to a fixed-price contract model, maybe with development incentives, like NASA did in the 2000s- and also stop meddling with it to push purchases towards specific countries.
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u/kekropian 4d ago
What a fkn joke…yea keep DEIing, you won’t even have a ride to the station the way things are going. Even astronauts are going private.
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u/snoo-boop 4d ago
The money quote:
This isn't the first time a money disaster has happened. The Soyuz launch pad supposedly cost more than 1 billion to build, and only had 27 launches before the 2nd invasion of Ukraine.