Author Topic: Space Intel Report - Squaring the circle: Europe wants launcher autonomy and low  (Read 19690 times)

Offline Rik ISS-fan

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One thing I simply don't get was why Europe did not make an Arian US that could restart? That is just extraordinarily poor judgement, more so as it's gotten harder to dual manifest 2 payload of the right matching size as average payload size has risen. this is one reason I would be suspicious of lower costs from FH. If getting 2 payloads on 1 vehicle was a PITA how many would it need to be a reasonable price?

 :o
1) Ariane 5 (G/G+/)GS & ES with the EPS L10 upperstage are restart-able.
2) In the early 2000's it was decided to develop a restartable Cyro-upperstage in two steps:
 - First was introduction of A5 ECA with the HM7B engine used on Ariane 4.
 - The second step was A5 ECB with the Vince restartable cryo engine.
3) Vince development took a lot longer than planned. Launch demand decreased a lot, thus less funding.
4) Major core modification were required for A5 ME with the restart-able Vince engine (15mT=>30mT). Thus A5 ME became a >1.5 e9 Euro development project.
5) A5 ME would only have replaced A5 ECA and ES. By developing a common P120C solid booster for Vega C/E and Ariane 6 Europe/Arianespace can launch all institutional satellites with a European launch vehicle.

(I think this was already the plan from 2012. Yes, two years before the official announcement. This plan will be complete in 2024 when Vega-E is operational. But for Vega-E there are stil some important political decisions to make during the 2018 ESA ministerial. I think Vega-E VUS upper-stage will reuse Ariane 5 production facilities.)
 

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