When Europe needed it most, the Ariane 6 rocket finally delivered | “For this sovereignty, we must yield to the temptation of preferring SpaceX.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/when-europe-needed-it-most-the-ariane-6-rocket-finally-delivered/
When Europe needed it most, the Ariane 6 rocket finally delivered | “For this sovereignty, we must yield to the temptation of preferring SpaceX.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/when-europe-needed-it-most-the-ariane-6-rocket-finally-delivered/
27 Comments
Ariane 6 is still a ridiculous development instead of a reusable rocket like Falcon 9. We cannot ever compete with starlink without a reusable rocket, and that’s a serious security risk for Europe. This can only be blamed on the boomers in charge of Arianespace.
(i know what I’m talking about, I’ve been to meetings where they talked about the development of Ariane 6, and even after SpaceX nailed their first barge landing, they completely dismissed the idea of a reusable rocket being viable, they even laughed the idea away)
What an unfortunate quote for Baptiste to have scuffed, here. He clearly meant that they must *not* yield to the temptation.
Is anyone really tempted to put their governmental payloads in the hands of a neo-Nazi manchild, who has already demonstrated being willing to wield this power when things don’t go his way? I should hope this recommendation wouldn’t even need to be made.
Europe is light years behind in terms of technology….
Damn the name of that rocket could hardly be any more ironic in the context of competing with Musk
The problem is cadence. By all means use an Ariane 6…if you can wait till 2035 for one to be available. But hopefully by years end there will be more alternatives available if you don’t mind using other Americans…. or India or Japan.
We must yield? Well ok but I was hoping we have better alternatives.
What a sad little rocket. Already obsolete. Fortunately, if Europe get their asses together, they might be able to form a commission that will prefer a plan for EU standards and regulations for reusable rockets in just next 5 years.
I thought Sweden also had a spaceport to launch satellites from, would that have been a good second choice if the French Guiana port was (in any way) compromised and for this kind of load?
Atleast the EU is working on a reusable rocket. It’s just a shame we wasted time and money on ariane6.
Europe needs to simply cancel all business with spacex , Tesla and any musk companies. It’s very easy to solve this. Anyone fighting against that needs to be looked at as a traitor and a Russian asset.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[ARM](/r/Space/comments/1j5lndv/stub/mgi2kz1 “Last usage”)|Asteroid Redirect Mission|
| |Advanced RISC Machines, embedded processor architecture|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/1j5lndv/stub/mghyywm “Last usage”)|European Space Agency|
|[GEO](/r/Space/comments/1j5lndv/stub/mgi5sql “Last usage”)|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)|
|[GTO](/r/Space/comments/1j5lndv/stub/mgi9po8 “Last usage”)|[Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20140116-how-to-get-a-satellite-to-gto.html)|
|[NSF](/r/Space/comments/1j5lndv/stub/mgi4vxc “Last usage”)|[NasaSpaceFlight forum](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com)|
| |National Science Foundation|
|[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/1j5lndv/stub/mgia3sa “Last usage”)|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1j5lndv/stub/mgialtj “Last usage”)|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1j5lndv/stub/mgie6zx “Last usage”)|SpaceX’s world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
—————-
^(8 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1j59w9b)^( has 25 acronyms.)
^([Thread #11127 for this sub, first seen 7th Mar 2025, 12:56])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
About prices for US government launches.
The US government has very high demands on additional safety and documentation.
I recall one of the early SpaceX contracts for NASA, which was about 20% more expensive than their commercial launches. A very well known very knowledgeable NASA employee and contributer to the NSF forum argued that SpaceX has miscalculated. The additional cost for a government launch is more than 20% and Spacex will lose money on that flight.
Do we know that Ariane has solved the problem of engine restart? Did they do a deorbit burn for this flight? Not sure, but I don’t think so. I have seen some about the Ariane system for restart. Sounds good, if they get it to work.
Restart is a requirement for getting payload to GEO for example.
Arians 6 and the rest of europe are a joke and we all know it. Literally a decade if not decades behind the competition.
That’s my girl! Europe must have independet option considering USA main guy moustache man fascination.
“But its not as good/cheap as na*i lover rocket”. Yeah, those guys were ahead in rockets since 40ties 🙂
Fck it, Ariane gets the job done, just imagine situation Ukraine is in now,when USA went full fa*cist. How much of their realistically better equipment still works in Ukraine?
You get to then point where something is “better”, but they can turn it of for you when they want to fck you.
So, go Ariane!
Just in time to laugh at superheavy for failing to deploy their first payload
In terms of SpaceX, it’s kind of a funny coincidence that Nazi Germany’s rocket program also wasn’t very succesful despite employing a lot of talented people.
So build your country’s space program to that level then… Jesus Christ it is not that difficult to budget for science.
Europeans right now
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/9f/0a/e99f0a5333213db73230aa9c4ac73fc9.gif](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/9f/0a/e99f0a5333213db73230aa9c4ac73fc9.gif)
It’s kind of wild to me how much the discourse around launch vehicles and providers has shifted.
Remember a few years ago when a SpaceX commentator made a joke about flying broomsticks in response to something someone at Roscosmos said? Remember when customers pivoted to SpaceX over Soyuz because of the security concerns over flying on Russian rockets? In just a few years time, the same thing is about to happen again. I wouldn’t be surprised if companies started moving away from Falcon 9 to Arianne or even Chinese reusable rockets as soon as it becomes viable, because of security concerns over flying with SpaceX.
Still, I’d like that europe actually would develop a reusable vector. The US have one, China is already doing a similar one. Can we please get one?
Well SpaceX is headed by a man who’s woefully unqualified to be in the business of building even a toaster sooooo.
If Europe allows themselves to fall into self-deception that Ariane 6 is competitive with even Falcon 9 then they’re going to be relegated to a space backwater.
For example Europe cannot build a Starlink competitor without a rocket like the Falcon 9. Ariane 6 is fundamentally incapable of doing so.
I want to see a competitive European launcher program, but Ariane 6 is not it.
As things are Ariane 6 will certainly be able to satisfy Europe’s national security needs, but any commercial space activities in Europe will still use the Falcon 9.
Europe does not have the economy to increase its spending on defence and space programs….you can only chose one.
You missed that boat.
Better to go with the much more expensive option.
I was just wondering about Arianne the other day, why is everyone seeming to forget they exist and acting like spacex is the only rocket in town?
It wasn’t spacex that put jwst in space…