Europe joins the re-usability bandwagon?

[LouScheffer]

From the 3 May AV week article.  Bold is mine.

Josef Aschbacher, ESA's new director general recently presented that by 2035,  "ESA has created a completely new, more competitive, and reusable launcher system".  In the near term, "future technology maturation, such as reusability, new engines.."  ESA aims to have a new reusable launcher in service in 2030.

"Reusability and very low cost liquid propulsion are the central themes [...]" states a document authored by France's general secretariat [..] This launcher should have two reusable stages [...].  "Reusability is relevent, even for a low cadence [...]"

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

[woods170]

From the 3 May AV week article.  Bold is mine.

Josef Aschbacher, ESA's new director general recently presented that by 2035,  "ESA has created a completely new, more competitive, and reusable launcher system".  In the near term, "future technology maturation, such as reusability, new engines.."  ESA aims to have a new reusable launcher in service in 2030.

"Reusability and very low cost liquid propulsion are the central themes [...]" states a document authored by France's general secretariat [..] This launcher should have two reusable stages [...].  "Reusability is relevent, even for a low cadence [...]"

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Yeah.... only eight years late...

[Redclaws]

From the 3 May AV week article.  Bold is mine.

Josef Aschbacher, ESA's new director general recently presented that by 2035,  "ESA has created a completely new, more competitive, and reusable launcher system".  In the near term, "future technology maturation, such as reusability, new engines.."  ESA aims to have a new reusable launcher in service in 2030.

"Reusability and very low cost liquid propulsion are the central themes [...]" states a document authored by France's general secretariat [..] This launcher should have two reusable stages [...].  "Reusability is relevent, even for a low cadence [...]"

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Oh man, by *2030*!  Just *tearing* along then.  Oh dear...

[yoram]

From the 3 May AV week article.  Bold is mine.

Josef Aschbacher, ESA's new director general recently presented that by 2035,  "ESA has created a completely new, more competitive, and reusable launcher system".  In the near term, "future technology maturation, such as reusability, new engines.."  ESA aims to have a new reusable launcher in service in 2030.

"Reusability and very low cost liquid propulsion are the central themes [...]" states a document authored by France's general secretariat [..] This launcher should have two reusable stages [...].  "Reusability is relevent, even for a low cadence [...]"

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Yeah.... only eight years late...

Wish the title used "ArianeSpace" instead of Europe. I would say at least one of the European small launcher startups has a reasonable chance to do it sooner, by going a similar route as Electron.

[Pipcard]

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Yeah.... only eight years late...

What do you want, a country in an alternate timeline that does it ten years earlier than SpaceX?

[Robotbeat]

From the 3 May AV week article.  Bold is mine.

Josef Aschbacher, ESA's new director general recently presented that by 2035,  "ESA has created a completely new, more competitive, and reusable launcher system".  In the near term, "future technology maturation, such as reusability, new engines.."  ESA aims to have a new reusable launcher in service in 2030.

"Reusability and very low cost liquid propulsion are the central themes [...]" states a document authored by France's general secretariat [..] This launcher should have two reusable stages [...].  "Reusability is relevent, even for a low cadence [...]"

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Oh man, by *2030*!  Just *tearing* along then.  Oh dear...

Well, at least they’re going for full reuse (assuming it’s 2STO). Not sure I’ve heard any date given for commitment to full reuse from anyone else but SpaceX..

[jbenton]

From the 3 May AV week article.  Bold is mine.

Josef Aschbacher, ESA's new director general recently presented that by 2035,  "ESA has created a completely new, more competitive, and reusable launcher system".  In the near term, "future technology maturation, such as reusability, new engines.."  ESA aims to have a new reusable launcher in service in 2030.

"Reusability and very low cost liquid propulsion are the central themes [...]" states a document authored by France's general secretariat [..] This launcher should have two reusable stages [...].  "Reusability is relevent, even for a low cadence [...]"

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Yeah.... only eight years late...

They've looked into this before:
https://sites.google.com/site/exosnews/home/rockets/adeline
https://futurism.com/the-byte/europe-reusable-rocket-design-spacex

[Pipcard]

They've looked into this before:
https://sites.google.com/site/exosnews/home/rockets/adeline
https://futurism.com/the-byte/europe-reusable-rocket-design-spacex

No, they've looked into this way before.

Ariane-X, reusable VTVL rocket proposed in 1981, planned introduction in 1995.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Wow! There are so many similarities to Falcon 9.

2 Stages
Common engines in first and second stage
Nine engines on first stage (article says 5 engines, but thrust is not sufficient and drawing shows 9)
One engine on second stage
Reusable first stage
Common tank diameters
Propulsive landing

Differences are

Hydrolox instead of kerolox
Uses heat shield in place of re-entry burn
No landing legs, indicating a water landing
No grid fins
No common bulkheads
First stage uses eight propellant tanks
Second stage inside fairing

[Hobbes-22]

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

ESA has been studying reusability as far back as 2004 as part of the FLPP. (and they considered it even for Ariane 4) Several years ago, they started full-scale engine development (Prometheus, 2017) and stage landing demonstrator projects.

[woods170]

They've looked into this before:
https://sites.google.com/site/exosnews/home/rockets/adeline
https://futurism.com/the-byte/europe-reusable-rocket-design-spacex

No, they've looked into this way before.

Ariane-X, reusable VTVL rocket proposed in 1981, planned introduction in 1995.

And that is precisely the problem. ESA has a tendency to study things to death yet never make them a reality. ESA and Arianespace could have been frontrunners with regards to reusability.
But a lack of will to actually execute is what has them now fininshing in fourth or fifth place.

[woods170]

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Yeah.... only eight years late...

What do you want, a country in an alternate timeline that does it ten years earlier than SpaceX?

No, what I want is an ESA and a CNES and an Arianspace that know how to read the writing on the wall. Because they failed to do so in 2014. They had the perfect opportunity to become close followers of SpaceX and thus remain competitive within the global LSP market.

But ESA, CNES and Arianespace failed to read the writing on the wall. And now Europe is stuck with a 'new' launcher which is obsolete by the time it starts flying, having wasted 5 billion Euros and 8 years. Current ESA and CNES efforts for reusability developement are severely being hampered by the money pit that is Ariane 6. Had those Euros been spent on a (partially) reusable launcher eight years ago, than Ariane 6 would be a close follower of Falcon 9, instead of a launcher with no chance of competing.

[hektor]

What is the point of competing for Europe ?

The priority for Europe should be to make sure they can timely launch their own payloads at a reasonable cost without having to beg for a launch from a foreign partner.

[TrevorMonty]

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Yeah.... only eight years late...

What do you want, a country in an alternate timeline that does it ten years earlier than SpaceX?

No, what I want is an ESA and a CNES and an Arianspace that know how to read the writing on the wall. Because they failed to do so in 2014. They had the perfect opportunity to become close followers of SpaceX and thus remain competitive within the global LSP market.

But ESA, CNES and Arianespace failed to read the writing on the wall. And now Europe is stuck with a 'new' launcher which is obsolete by the time it starts flying, having wasted 5 billion Euros and 8 years. Current ESA and CNES efforts for reusability developement are severely being hampered by the money pit that is Ariane 6. Had those Euros been spent on a (partially) reusable launcher eight years ago, than Ariane 6 would be a close follower of Falcon 9, instead of a launcher with no chance of competing.

They didn't have engines then to do RLV.  A6 was best ELV they could do with what they had and most importantly cheaper and more versatile than A5.


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[LouScheffer]

They didn't have engines then to do RLV.  A6 was best ELV they could do with what they had

They identified engines of the right size, and restartable, in the 1981 proposal above.  Even if they did not take the idea seriously until 2014, the could have had engines by now (7 years is about right for a new engine).  Building a new engine and new rocket in parallel is hardly unprecedented (see Vulcan, Starship, etc.).

[...] and most importantly cheaper and more versatile than A5.

This to me is the biggest lack of imagination.  Incremental improvement is sometimes not enough to be competitive.

To see this done better, and in Europe, look at Porsche.   They make some of the best gas powered cars, and they saw electric cars as a potential threat.  While other companies incrementally added electric to their existing car lineups, Porsche started a full-scale, multi-year development of a new model optimized for electric propulsion.   As a result, they now have a new car, the Taycan, which competes strongly in the open global market and is already their best selling model in Europe.  While companies with more conservative strategies are endangered, Porsche is in great shape.  This could have been Ariane.

[Redclaws]

What is the point of competing for Europe ?

The priority for Europe should be to make sure they can timely launch their own payloads at a reasonable cost without having to beg for a launch from a foreign partner.

A few reasons.
1. Historically they’ve been competitive enough to make money.  Ariane 5 managed to be a world leader in some areas of sat launch for quite a while.  This one can obviously be forgone as a nice to have rather than must have.

2. If they get *really* uncompetitive, the greater cost they face will be a problem.  Imagine a future where SpaceX has a fully reusable and fairly quickly launching starship, putting 80-100t in LEO for $10 or $20 million a flight.

Ariane 6 is something like $90 million per launch of 20 tons to LEO.  So that’s $4.5 million/ton, vs SpaceX at, say, $200,000/ton.

So launch for this US company is ~20x cheaper.  Couldn’t this cost difference enable new ways of exploiting space?  (I mean that’s certainly the assumption.). And if it does, those are *potentially* closed to Europe.  (If you’re going to say they’re not closed because Europe and the US are allies, then I’d just point out this invalidates the argument for independent launch anyway.)

Space launch is a national security capability.  That mean it’s probably ok to be cost uncompetitive (look at Japan’s rockets), but only to a point.

[baldusi]

So reusability mentioned six times in two paragraphs, including four quotes.   Seems like they got the message.

Yeah.... only eight years late...

What do you want, a country in an alternate timeline that does it ten years earlier than SpaceX?

No, what I want is an ESA and a CNES and an Arianspace that know how to read the writing on the wall. Because they failed to do so in 2014. They had the perfect opportunity to become close followers of SpaceX and thus remain competitive within the global LSP market.

But ESA, CNES and Arianespace failed to read the writing on the wall. And now Europe is stuck with a 'new' launcher which is obsolete by the time it starts flying, having wasted 5 billion Euros and 8 years. Current ESA and CNES efforts for reusability developement are severely being hampered by the money pit that is Ariane 6. Had those Euros been spent on a (partially) reusable launcher eight years ago, than Ariane 6 would be a close follower of Falcon 9, instead of a launcher with no chance of competing.

Do you remember the ferocious fight to avoid the all-solid Ariane 6 that CNES was viciously pushing for? I don't think that many failed to read the writings on the wall. It just happened that the one with the biggest wallet was hell bent on subsidizing its own nuclear ICBM and industry fought very hard to get a mostly liquid rocket with a more industry lead approach. I'm pretty sure SAFRAN would have loved to get a juicy contract for a reusable FFSC hydrolox engine. But they were praying to get a liquid engine contract at all.

[Pipcard]

A few reasons.
1. Historically they’ve been competitive enough to make money.  Ariane 5 managed to be a world leader in some areas of sat launch for quite a while.  This one can obviously be forgone as a nice to have rather than must have.

This may be referred to as the "innovator's dilemma." If you are too successful with what you have been doing so far, you might become complacent when a new disruptive technology is introduced. (Will that apply to SpaceX, too?)

[freddo411]

What is the point of competing for Europe ?

The priority for Europe should be to make sure they can timely launch their own payloads at a reasonable cost without having to beg for a launch from a foreign partner.

That's true, but it's the lowest possible achievement.   

Ariane 4 and 5 were the best/most-successful commercial satellite launchers for about 2 decades.

Why not compete again?

[ZachF]

What is the point of competing for Europe ?

The priority for Europe should be to make sure they can timely launch their own payloads at a reasonable cost without having to beg for a launch from a foreign partner.

Because RLVs are going to change the definition of what it really means to have "independent access".

Does the EU, with ~17% of the world economy, really have "independent access" if it has a 1% share of global launch capability? This is not hyperbole either, Europe will be a rounding error in the global launch market if it doesn't get off it's bum and soon.

A single Starship launch equals or exceeds the entire European annual launch capability. One launch.