Ariane 6 Discussion Thread: Place Your Ariane 6 Discussions Here

[baldusi]

AFAIK currently the increase of small satellite demand has caused a larger reduction in larger satellites. Thus the cheaper mass produced satellites have AFAIK cause a reduction in launch demand.
And I really doubt replacing a single GTO or MEO sat by >10 LEO comsat's is a more affordable system. Besides with a HAPS one can be used to provide low latency service for an area, instead of a couple of hundred satellites at least. (But that has global coverage, but is providing the service permitted?)

What I've seen in the GTO market is that the bandwidth/launch mass has increased dramatically. This has meant that the supply (on an annual launch mass capability basis) has greatly surpassed demand of bandwidth. Even with significant increase in demand. HTS and SEP have caused much of the launch reduction. Ariane 6 is particularly sensitive because it needs many passengers in this scenario.

[envy887]

When launch cost is reduced, satellites are built cheaper.

Please explain how this works. I can't comprehend how reduced launch cost can result in cheaper satellite build cost.

If you want a case study, look at Starlink. ~$30M/Tbps instead of ~$600M/Tbps for ViaSat 3, only possible because launch costs of $1000/kg instead of $20,000/kg drive massively different design and operational decisions.

[TrevorMonty]

 The commercial satellite launch of mass to orbit per year hasn't gone up enough to support all new Arianne 6 class LVs available. There a plenty of smallsats but their combined mass isn't great with lot choosing to use smaller LVs. The odd rideshare mission a year isn't enough for likes of A6. Without government missions A6 and F9 would struggle to be commercially viable.

Starlink is not commercial launch market but business gamble by SpaceX, we are yet to see if it is success.

I don't see owners of GEO sats lowering replacement life from 15yrs because launch costs have come down, in fact I see their expected life being extended. With NGSS MRV capabilities there is no reason future GEO satellites can't be used well past 15yrs with upgrades being possible inspace. NB most GEOs are retired due to lack of fuel not because they are obsolete or have a fault.

[ChrisWilson68]

Starlink is not commercial launch market but business gamble by SpaceX, we are yet to see if it is success.

Risk doesn't mean something isn't commercial.  Businesses take risks all the time with new products.  Starlink is commercial because it's meant to make money.

I don't see owners of GEO sats lowering replacement life from 15yrs because launch costs have come down, in fact I see their expected life being extended. With NGSS MRV capabilities there is no reason future GEO satellites can't be used well past 15yrs with upgrades being possible inspace. NB most GEOs are retired due to lack of fuel not because they are obsolete or have a fault.

You're not seeing the lifetimes come down because you're explicitly excluding LEO, where, in fact, Starlink satellites have a 5 year lifetime.

Anyway, the effects of lower costs take time to have effect.  The satellite industry doesn't change overnight.  And most of the cost savings from reusable launch have yet to show up.  Wait until 5-10 years after we have a fully, rapidly reusable launch vehicle in operation and then you'll see the change.

[envy887]

The commercial satellite launch of mass to orbit per year hasn't gone up enough to support all new Arianne 6 class LVs available. There a plenty of smallsats but their combined mass isn't great with lot choosing to use smaller LVs. The odd rideshare mission a year isn't enough for likes of A6. Without government missions A6 and F9 would struggle to be commercially viable.

Starlink is not commercial launch market but business gamble by SpaceX, we are yet to see if it is success.

I don't see owners of GEO sats lowering replacement life from 15yrs because launch costs have come down, in fact I see their expected life being extended. With NGSS MRV capabilities there is no reason future GEO satellites can't be used well past 15yrs with upgrades being possible inspace. NB most GEOs are retired due to lack of fuel not because they are obsolete or have a fault.

Ariane 6 hasn't reduced the cost of launch enough to have a significant impact on the design and operational decisions that drive satellite cost. In fact, Ariane 6 hasn't reduced the cost of launch at all, since 1) it isn't even flying yet and 2) once operational it will at best only match the $10k/kg to GTO price available 5+ years ago on Falcon.

Falcon reduced of cost to LEO by 10-fold from Ariane 5/Atlas V, from $10k/kg to $1k/kg, and this is driving Starlink's low build cost. We will probably need to see GTO prices take a similar 10-fold drop from $20k/kg on Ariane 5/Atlas V to around $2k/kg to see the same build cost reduction in GEO comm sats. But even Falcon isn't even close to $2k/kg to GTO now... F9R is at best about $5k/kg to GTO now. And satcomm operators want to see at least two LV operators in a given price range before factoring in that launch price to their long term plans.

So I agree that we're still a ways from seeing major changes in GEO. None of the current crop of expendable and partially reusable vehicles (Ariane 6, Vulcan, H3, New Glenn, F9/FH) can hit the necessary prices. Maybe Starship and other next-generation vehicles will.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Falcon reduced of cost to LEO by 10-fold from Ariane 5/Atlas V, from $10k/kg to $1k/kg, and this is driving Starlink's low build cost.

Price differences are greatly exaggerated. Typical Ariane 5 launch price is $150M ($137M in 2014) for 20 t to LEO is $7,500/kg compared to $62M (from SpaceX price guide) for 15.6 t (Starlink payload) or $3,970/kg. So the difference is not by a factor of 10, it is a factor of 1.9. Ariane 64 price is $136.4M (€115) for 21.65 t to LEO or $6,300/kg, with SpaceX being 1.6 times less. For GTO, the differences are even smaller, with Ariane 6 being only 5% greater than Falcon 9.

Note that the $52M that SpaceX charged to NASA for launching IXPE was a special deal as they were competing against the insanely expensive in terms of $/kg Pegasus XL. That price is not available to customers seeking to launch large payloads.

LEO
Atlas 551 $8,130/kg
Ariane 5 $7,500/kg
Ariane 64 $6,300/kg
Falcon 9 $3,970/kg

GTO
Atlas 551 $17,190/kg
Ariane 5 $14,290/kg
Ariane 64 $11,860/kg
Falcon 9 $11,270/kg

https://www.space.com/41936-ariane-5-rocket-aces-100th-launch.html
https://www.arianespace.com/vehicle/ariane-5/
https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ld7Dz__7_VjqMd2uZNgANL38BnWCetYGA5F-ykDjkvc/edit#gid=0
https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2014/12/01/les-europeens-s-appretent-a-mettre-ariane-6-en-chantier_4532259_3234.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V

[soyuzu]

Falcon reduced of cost to LEO by 10-fold from Ariane 5/Atlas V, from $10k/kg to $1k/kg, and this is driving Starlink's low build cost.

Price differences are greatly exaggerated. Typical Ariane 5 launch price is $150M ($137M in 2014) for 20 t to LEO is $7,500/kg compared to $62M (from SpaceX price guide) for 15.6 t (Starlink payload) or $3,970/kg. So the difference is not by a factor of 10, it is a factor of 1.9. Ariane 64 price is $136.4M (€115) for 21.65 t to LEO or $6,300/kg, with SpaceX being 1.6 times less. For GTO, the differences are even smaller, with Ariane 6 being only 5% greater than Falcon 9.

Note that the $52M that SpaceX charged to NASA for launching IXPE was a special deal as they were competing against the insanely expensive in terms of $/kg Pegasus XL. That price is not available to customers seeking to launch large payloads.

LEO
Atlas 551 $8,130/kg
Ariane 5 $7,500/kg
Ariane 64 $6,300/kg
Falcon 9 $3,970/kg

GTO
Atlas 551 $17,190/kg
Ariane 5 $14,290/kg
Ariane 64 $11,860/kg
Falcon 9 $11,300/kg

https://www.space.com/41936-ariane-5-rocket-aces-100th-launch.html
https://www.arianespace.com/vehicle/ariane-5/
https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ld7Dz__7_VjqMd2uZNgANL38BnWCetYGA5F-ykDjkvc/edit#gid=0
https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2014/12/01/les-europeens-s-appretent-a-mettre-ariane-6-en-chantier_4532259_3234.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V

As mentioned before, the $62M price cannot represent actual contract price of reused F9s nowadays.

Actually, SpaceX seems to have offered price far lower than this earlier than many of us think. For example, SpaceX charges 40 percent less for launch of Merah Putih In 2018 than its predecessor, Telekom-3S, [1] which is a 3.5t satellite launched on the lower position of an Ariane5 ECA [2], that has a price tag of $60M around 2013. [3]

Please note Merah Putih is a 5.8t satellite used up almost all capacity of F9 ASDS, thus the GTO1800 price per kg for Falcon 9 can be as low as $6207/kg.

In other words, SpaceX may have been selling launch at lower than $40M for “customers seeking to launch large payloads” for several years. Consider government  launches usually costs 30-50% more for extra services, etc. this lines up with the price of IXPE quite well.

[1]https://www.cnnindonesia.com/teknologi/20170417152745-213-208098/telkom-bakal-lebih-hemat-berkat-roket-spacex/

Direktur Utama Telkom Alex J. Sinaga memperkirakan penghematan biaya untuk roket peluncur mencapai sekitar 40 persen dibanding yang mereka keluarkan untuk meluncurkan satelit Telkom 3S. Faktor roket SpaceX yang bisa dipakai berulang kali jadi penyebab utamanya

Translation by Google:

President Director of Telkom, Alex J. Sinaga, estimates that the cost savings for the launcher rocket will reach around 40 percent compared to what they spent on launching the Telkom 3S satellite. The factor of the SpaceX rocket that can be used repeatedly is the main cause

[2]https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telkom-3s.htm
[3]https://web.archive.org/web/20140310123118/http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=%2Farticle-xml%2FAW_03_10_2014_p48-668592.xml

[Steven Pietrobon]

Actually, SpaceX seems to have offered price far lower than this earlier than many of us think. For example, SpaceX charges 40 percent less for launch of Merah Putih In 2018 than its predecessor, Telkom-3S, [1] which is a 3.5t satellite launched on the lower position of an Ariane5 ECA [2], that has a price tag of $60M around 2013. [3]

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20140310123118/http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=%2Farticle-xml%2FAW_03_10_2014_p48-668592.xml

That article is about SpaceX titled "SpaceX Says Falcon 9 To Compete For EELV This Year" from March 2014, which is before Arianespace won the Telkom-3S launch contract in September 2014. I can't find any reference to the launch price of Telkom-3S or the lower berth of Ariane 5.

https://www.seradata.com/arianespace-gets-telkom-3s-launch-contract/

[soyuzu]

Actually, SpaceX seems to have offered price far lower than this earlier than many of us think. For example, SpaceX charges 40 percent less for launch of Merah Putih In 2018 than its predecessor, Telkom-3S, [1] which is a 3.5t satellite launched on the lower position of an Ariane5 ECA [2], that has a price tag of $60M around 2013. [3]

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20140310123118/http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=%2Farticle-xml%2FAW_03_10_2014_p48-668592.xml

That article is about SpaceX titled "SpaceX Says Falcon 9 To Compete For EELV This Year" from March 2014, which is before Arianespace won the Telkom-3S launch contract in September 2014. I can't find any reference to the launch price of Telkom-3S or the lower berth of Ariane 5.

https://www.seradata.com/arianespace-gets-telkom-3s-launch-contract/

Advertised at $56.5 million per launch, Falcon 9 missions to GTO cost almost $15 million less than a ride atop a Chinese Long March 3B and are competitive with the cost to launch a midsize satellite in the lower position on a European Ariane 5 ECA (see graphic on page 49).

[envy887]

Falcon reduced of cost to LEO by 10-fold from Ariane 5/Atlas V, from $10k/kg to $1k/kg, and this is driving Starlink's low build cost.

Price differences are greatly exaggerated. Typical Ariane 5 launch price is $150M ($137M in 2014) for 20 t to LEO is $7,500/kg compared to $62M (from SpaceX price guide) for 15.6 t (Starlink payload) or $3,970/kg. So the difference is not by a factor of 10, it is a factor of 1.9. Ariane 64 price is $136.4M (€115) for 21.65 t to LEO or $6,300/kg, with SpaceX being 1.6 times less. For GTO, the differences are even smaller, with Ariane 6 being only 5% greater than Falcon 9.

Note that the $52M that SpaceX charged to NASA for launching IXPE was a special deal as they were competing against the insanely expensive in terms of $/kg Pegasus XL. That price is not available to customers seeking to launch large payloads.

LEO
Atlas 551 $8,130/kg
Ariane 5 $7,500/kg
Ariane 64 $6,300/kg
Falcon 9 $3,970/kg

GTO
Atlas 551 $17,190/kg
Ariane 5 $14,290/kg
Ariane 64 $11,860/kg
Falcon 9 $11,270/kg

https://www.space.com/41936-ariane-5-rocket-aces-100th-launch.html
https://www.arianespace.com/vehicle/ariane-5/
https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ld7Dz__7_VjqMd2uZNgANL38BnWCetYGA5F-ykDjkvc/edit#gid=0
https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2014/12/01/les-europeens-s-appretent-a-mettre-ariane-6-en-chantier_4532259_3234.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V

That's a rather optimistic price for Ariane 5 according to more recent sources, but it doesn't really matter to my point. All those prices are too similar to have a significant effect on the design and operational decisions that drive satellite cost.

The question was about the effect of launch cost on satellite cost. SpaceX is making those decisions for Starlink and isn't basing those on list price, but the internal marginal cost which is more like $1k/kg to LEO.

That of course doesn't help other customers much, since they can't access that price until multiple LV operators hit it. But it does show that driving down launch cost also drives down optimum satellite cost.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Advertised at $56.5 million per launch, Falcon 9 missions to GTO cost almost $15 million less than a ride atop a Chinese Long March 3B and are competitive with the cost to launch a midsize satellite in the lower position on a European Ariane 5 ECA (see graphic on page 49).

Here's a better reference that I managed to find today.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/comparison-of-current-and-planned-heavy-space-launch-systems.html

"As of November 2014, the Ariane 5 commercial launch price for launching a “midsize satellite in the lower position” is approximately US$60 million,"

So, assuming that Telkom 3S was launched at $60M, that is $65.7M in 2020 for a 3,550 kg payload or $18,500/kg, which is quite expensive. For Merah Putih, the launch cost is claimed to be 40% less than Telkom 3S in 2014 or $36M for a launch mass of 5800 kg. I couldn't find when SpaceX won the launch contract, but if it was similar to Telkom 3S at three years before launch, then inflating from 2015 to 2020 gives $39.4M or $6,800/kg, which is 2.7 times less than Ariane 5.

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telkom-3s.htm
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telkom-4.htm

[soyuzu]

Advertised at $56.5 million per launch, Falcon 9 missions to GTO cost almost $15 million less than a ride atop a Chinese Long March 3B and are competitive with the cost to launch a midsize satellite in the lower position on a European Ariane 5 ECA (see graphic on page 49).

Here's a better reference that I managed to find today.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/comparison-of-current-and-planned-heavy-space-launch-systems.html

"As of November 2014, the Ariane 5 commercial launch price for launching a “midsize satellite in the lower position” is approximately US$60 million,"

So, assuming that Telkom 3S was launched at $60M, that is $65.7M in 2020 for a 3,550 kg payload or $18,500/kg, which is quite expensive. For Merah Putih, the launch cost is claimed to be 40% less than Telkom 3S in 2014 or $36M for a launch mass of 5800 kg. I couldn't find when SpaceX won the launch contract, but if it was similar to Telkom 3S at three years before launch, then inflating from 2015 to 2020 gives $39.4M or $6,800/kg, which is 2.7 times less than Ariane 5.

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telkom-3s.htm
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telkom-4.htm

Well, my source of estimation actually comes from a citation in Wikipedia article of Ariana 5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_pricing_and_market_competition

Given that the article you cite also use Wikipedia as source heavily, I suspect it all went back to that rough information in aviationweek.

Meanwhile, I found another pair of sources stated the cost of lower position on Ariane 5 as €56M.


https://spacenews.com/with-eye-on-spacex-cnes-begins-work-on-reusable-rocket-stage/
in 2015 mentioned:

Today the Ariane 5 is sold for about 150 million euros, but it costs about 170 million euros per launch

and in the the thread
  https://spacenews.com/with-eye-on-spacex-cnes-begins-work-on-reusable-rocket-stage/

user GWR64 claimed Eutelsat told him/her the lower position is 40% cheaper than the upper position before 2019

These gives the price of lower position as 0.6/1.6*150M=€56.25M in 2014, €59.4M, or $70.7M in 2020. Then Merah Putih should be contracted at $42M.

However, Merah Putih was actually sent into sub-GTO (about 30000km apogee if I remembered correctly), so the equivalent payload to GTO-1800 will be lower, at ~5.5t.
This gives $7714/kg, 2.4 times lower than the PRICE, and 2.7 times lower than the COST of Ariane 5, according to the Spacenews report. Comparing cost may give a even greater difference.

[GWR64]

user GWR64 claimed Eutelsat told him/her the lower position is 40% cheaper than the upper position before 2019

Eutelsat claimed that, not me 
one source, page 10 (Eutelsat 172B)
https://de.eutelsat.com/files/live/sites/eutelsatv2/files/contributed/investors/pdf/Capital-Markets-Day-2015/Technology_enhancing%20growth%20and%20efficiency.pdf

[Jakdowski]

Combined Tests

https://ariane6.cnes.fr/fr/lanceurs-les-essais-combines-antichambre-du-premier-tir-dariane-6

[Rik ISS-fan]

Since this is the Ariane 6 discussion topic, I'll reply to the maiden launch delay here.
I think the largest error in the Ariane 6 and Vega-C development programs were unrealistic timelines. The Vega VV-15 failure and Covid-19 didn't help, I think they're not the real reason for the delays.
The cost comparison for Ariane 6 and Falcon 9 (1.0) isn't justified in my oppinion. The situation isn't comparable.
Besides AFAIK Americans don't have a right to judge this, since NASA is and has been funding both SLS and Orion with >1billion annually for over a decade. Besides the USAF just spend ~2billion on the development of Vulcan, New Glenn and OmegA.
In this context the ~4 billion development cost for Ariane 6 (factories in europe), ELA4, and Vega-C over 6-8 years is in my oppinion acceptable. Especially since the USA has proven they can NOT be relied upon (Symphony).
With a development delay of >1,5 years, the 230mln additional development cost isn't very huge. But the european launcher industry has made a fool of myself.

[GWR64]

Will this schedule remain? To me, the roadmap looks relatively tight.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31484.msg2148335#msg2148335

In this context, is it now officially known how many Ariane 5 ECA there will be?
Arianespace wrote in 2019 that final batch are only 8 rockets. Is this still up-to-date?
I've read this similar at Avio in the past.
The Vulcain turbopumps 9 and 10 from the final batch are to be used in the Ariane 6.

I think, 4 Ariane 5 launches 2021 and 4 in 2022.
The Ariane 64 won't start until 2023, I'm pretty sure. So there is no more reserve!

[Rik ISS-fan]

The initial planning had this planned between early 2020 and the maiden launch in Q4 2020. I think this is a realistic schedule.
But setbacks and problems could still cause delays.

I expect that ESA/EU/Arianespace will make a big launch order announcement before the end of 2020. I expect this will also include conversion of launches from Ariane 6 to Soyuz-ST or Ariane 5.
It's rumoured that some of the Galileo launches have been converted to Soyuz-ST.

[Chasm]

Chances are that there will be more delays. Covid is not over and has the potential to shut down things at any time.
How much depend on whether ESA can keep construction of the launch site and major blockers like hot fire and integration test moving along nicely.

There is only so much the engineers can do from their home office. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And it looks very much like there will be a lot of that in the coming months all across the EU.

[tenkendojo]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/europes-challenger-to-the-falcon-9-rocket-runs-into-more-delays/
"European space officials announced late last week that the debut of the Ariane 6 rocket will be delayed again—this time until the second quarter of 2022."

According to the article the delay was mostly caused COVID-19.

[Oli]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/europes-challenger-to-the-falcon-9-rocket-runs-into-more-delays/
"European space officials announced late last week that the debut of the Ariane 6 rocket will be delayed again—this time until the second quarter of 2022."

According to the article the delay was mostly caused COVID-19.

2022? Covid or not, this is getting embarrassing.