Europeans find themselves without a short -term solution to launch their satellites. The question of autonomy of access to space arises all the more since the Ariane 6 launcher will not be available before 2024.
by Dominique Gallois
Cruel end of the year and above all dark perspectives for space Europe. His ambition to stay in the race against the Americans and the Chinese is seriously questioned after the failure of the launch of his new rocket Vega C. Tuesday December 20, two minutes and twenty-seven seconds after his takeoff of the Kourou base In Guyana, this launcher disappeared from the controls, and with him, the two Pleiade observation satellites that he had to put in orbit for Airbus.
The problem comes from the second floor. A commission of inquiry should be set up to deliver its first conclusions as quickly as possible. On this assessment will then depend on the sequence of the program for this rocket manufactured by Italian Avio, whose design was designed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the flight program carried out by Arianespace.
This failure weakens Arianespace which risks being found for several months without launcher to honor its commercial contracts. Until the beginning of 2022, the European firm had a range of three rockets, two Europeans La Petite Vega, for light satellites in low orbit between 300 and 2,000 kilometers from the earth and its big sister Ariane 5 for heavy loads To be placed in geostationary at 36,000 kilometers. It completed its offer with Russian launchers Soyuz to low orbit, essential to respond to its order book.
The year 2022 was to be that of the renewal of the range with the commissioning of Vega C more efficient than the previous model, and Ariane 6, a versatile launcher that can cover both the low orbit and the geostationary, At 40 % to 50 % lower than those of Ariane 5 to be competitive with the Falcon rockets launched by Space X, the Elon Musk firm. But nothing has happened as planned.
started with Soyuz. Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, on February 24, Moscow decided to stop all collaboration with Europe and the Russian teams left Kourou. No more launching rockets. Impossible for Arianespace to transfer to Vega C the satellites provided for on the Soyuz missions, the load plan being complete. Private customers then turned to other launch companies. Thus to continue to deploy its constellation of satellites broadcasting broadband Internet, the French Oneweb, customer of Vega, chose the American SpaceX but also the Indian Newspace India Limited.
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