Not with ESA it isn't. Development of Ariane 5 went substantially over budget. However, the development prime contractor was not held responsible for the over-runs. The additional cost was mostly coughed up by the participating ESA member states by delaying the program. Same thing happened with ATV.
No, it isn't. It's under just as much control (or better said: as little control) from CNES/Arianespace as any other contractor facility, regardless of it being situated at CSG or not.The booster infrastructure at CSG is partly run by the contractor (Regulus) and treated as a contractor facility by CNES/Arianespace.
True damn pity it is Soyuz in Couru zenith would have been a much better partner.Imagine what Ariane 6 would have looked like if that had have happened.Not that I am knocking present plans.At present it is a very handy satellite launcher.Pity it will be such a polluting monster.
I tend to think that a major attraction of solids for ESA/CNES is their synergy with missiles.
And I can't see what that has to do with how Ariane 6 will look?
Ignoring politics...
I think the implication was that Zenit (or a Europeanised version of it) would be the correct size for NGL. Ignoring politics, it would make economic sense for ESA to just buy Zenits, rather that spend billions of Euros to develop their own launcher with nearly identical performance.
Which apparently hasn't stopped them from buying Soyuzes...
Quote from: Proponent on 04/03/2013 02:56 pmYou're right. If it is a mistake for Europe to abandon hydrocarbon engines, that mistake was made with Ariane 5. The investment in segmented solids for Ariane 5 doesn't seem to be paying off either.Sorry to have to correct you again, but hydrocarbon technology was not abandoned with the introduction of Ariane 5, simply because Ariane launchers have never used hydrocarbon technology.
You're right. If it is a mistake for Europe to abandon hydrocarbon engines, that mistake was made with Ariane 5. The investment in segmented solids for Ariane 5 doesn't seem to be paying off either.
Soyuz fills a current gap in the European launch service, this has never been to the detriment of the commercially focussed Ariane 5 as it is used primarily for small science missions that could never afford the A5.
Quote from: floss on 04/04/2013 10:23 pmTrue damn pity it is Soyuz in Couru zenith would have been a much better partner.Imagine what Ariane 6 would have looked like if that had have happened.Not that I am knocking present plans.At present it is a very handy satellite launcher.Pity it will be such a polluting monster.Ariancespace and ESA had no need for a heavy launcher they needed a medium launcher to complement Vega and Ariane therefore Soyuz was and still is the best alternative. And I can't see what that has to do with how Ariane 6 will look?
Can you imagine what the ministers would have said when they were asked for 3 billion per year for lunar missions, if esa could have ordered a super heavy launcher out of readily available launchers .Soyuz is too small for the high profit 6 ton com sats . As satellites grow in size ariane 5 is getting too small to launch 2 at a time hence the development of ariane 6 .what is needed is a second launcher that can provide redundancy so that ariane 5 can grow to launch larger payloads.
Really, the only way to make the economics work out is do the Soyuz route, buy a foreign rocket and resell it.
Really? Of the four Soyuz launches from Kourou, two were Galileo nav sats and two were a French spy sats. The only real science payload on the manifest is Gaia. The rest are more Galileos and commercial comm sats.
Which is the point; nearly all (if not all) European government payloads are satisfied by Soyuz + Vega. So, NGL is solely targeted at commercial launches. But by the time a newly designed rocket flies, it will have to compete against both the low cost American companies (SpaceX, BlueOrigin, Stratolaunch, etc) and the increasingly reliable (and also low-cost) Chinese and Indians. The only reason Ariane 5 can compete now is its reliability record. Replace it with a new rocket and you've lost even that.
Quote from: floss on 04/06/2013 10:15 pmCan you imagine what the ministers would have said when they were asked for 3 billion per year for lunar missions, if esa could have ordered a super heavy launcher out of readily available launchers .Soyuz is too small for the high profit 6 ton com sats . As satellites grow in size ariane 5 is getting too small to launch 2 at a time hence the development of ariane 6 .what is needed is a second launcher that can provide redundancy so that ariane 5 can grow to launch larger payloads.Still don't understand what you're grasping at?Before it was Zenit at CSG now you're talking about a 'super heavy rocket' and redundancy for Ariane 5?
It is all linked Soyuz is too small to launch big satellites.If they had have got zenith instead there would have been 2 heavy launchers in CSG ,the reason for Ariane 6 is the second heavy launcher. satellite companies dont make satellites that can only be launched on one launcher. A super heavy using rd 180s on the first stage Vulcain on the second stage and one vulcain on the third sounds very like a very nice moon rocket to me.
Quote from: floss on 04/07/2013 07:08 pmIt is all linked Soyuz is too small to launch big satellites.If they had have got zenith instead there would have been 2 heavy launchers in CSG ,the reason for Ariane 6 is the second heavy launcher. satellite companies dont make satellites that can only be launched on one launcher. A super heavy using rd 180s on the first stage Vulcain on the second stage and one vulcain on the third sounds very like a very nice moon rocket to me.Since it's clear you haven't read anything that has been written on this subject on the forum I'm not even going to take the time to respond to your 'argument' Have been reading this forum for ten years at least and guess what the same thing is being discussed as ten years ago only difference is that they have stopped bashing the shuttle.Beagle 2 would have a damn sight more chance of success had it been bigger.I dont think that Ariane 5 will be abandoned when Ariane 6 is flying it will always be cheaper to split the insurance with somebody else than pay it alone.As I said I think Soyuz is too small .