Maļa Space - ArianeGroup reusable launcher (2026)

[libra]

What I find most hilarious; is the fact that ArianeGroup is an European company, not a France company.

Arianegroup is 50% owned by Safran, which is a French company, and 50% by Airbus, which is also majority French. The headquarters and the majority of the facilities are in France.

If Arianegroup was really European, then the Germans would never have created Eurockot for example...

And by the way, Maļa Space is a simple subsidiary of Arianegroup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starsem

[Rik ISS-fan]

I think libra tried to point at this; From that wiki:

ArianeGroup's principal sites in 2016 were Issy-les-Moulineaux, Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, Kourou (space center), Vernon, Le Haillan and Les Mureaux in France as well as Lampoldshausen, Bremen and Ottobrunn in Germany.

Subsidiaries:   
Arianespace
Aerospace Propulsion Products B.V. (dutch company, igniters)
CILAS
Eurockot Launch Services
NUCLETUDES
Pyroalliance
Sodern

I hope Closer to Space gets the irony of his/here reply.
Why would there be the requirement to set up a (France) subsidiary if ArianeGroup was only from France.
The Vince engine was for the mayor part developed in Germany, AFAIK they also made the HM7B and Aestus engines. So with Vince and ULPM assembly/manufacturing in Germany and Vulcan/Prometheus and LLPM in France, and Avio, Italy making the P120C casings; the work for Ariane 6 is nicely devided.
Avio might develop de Vega L; Spain has PLDspace and Pangea Aerospace; Germany has Isar Aerospace; RFA and HyImpulse. In France there is Venture Orbital Systems; and there are pan European launcher initiatives funded by the EU. And now ArianeGroup France needs to undermine all this competition by creating Maia Space.
They better get their act together on Ariane 6 and Themis work first.

Chance this post is here next week <25%.

[Timber Micka]

I think libra tried to point at this; From that wiki:

ArianeGroup's principal sites in 2016 were Issy-les-Moulineaux, Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, Kourou (space center), Vernon, Le Haillan and Les Mureaux in France as well as Lampoldshausen, Bremen and Ottobrunn in Germany.

Subsidiaries:   
Arianespace
Aerospace Propulsion Products B.V. (dutch company, igniters)
CILAS
Eurockot Launch Services
NUCLETUDES
Pyroalliance
Sodern

The Vince engine was for the mayor part developed in Germany

No, Germany did not design the Vinci engine, only the static tests of the hardware took place there. Vinci was entirely designed in Vernon, France alongside Vulcain.
However, France has recently ceased to be the main financial contributor to the Ariane 6 project. It's Germany now. As a result, Arianespace has decided to relocate serial production of the Vinci engine to Germany, which will result in the loss of several hundred jobs in France. This caused controversy in France as Germany did not participate in the design of Ariane 6 apart from the Astrid upper stage.

Vinci is the result of 25 years of hard work in Vernon. Its design dates back to the origins of Ariane 5: the engine was to power the upper stage of the Ariane 5 ECB, which was to enter service a few years after Ariane 5 ECA. When the performance of Ariane 5 ECA proved to be more than sufficient, the Ariane 5 ECB project was put aside. It was renamed Ariane 5 ME and was continuously postponed until its cancellation around 5 years ago. Vinci was transferred to Ariane 6 shortly after.

In compensation for the relocation of the Vinci assembly lines, France and CNES retain the monopoly on the design of the reusable launcher that will succeed Ariane and its Prometheus engine, but this will not prevent the loss of jobs because currently there are only small teams working on these projects in Vernon.

Hope I helped clarify the situation.

[hektor]

The way you articulate it, it sounds like the French government(s) screwed up big time.

[gosnold]

ESA as a whole screwed up by not having Prometheus ready for Ariane 6. The rest is jsut the consequences of that.

[RoadWithoutEnd]

Thought for a moment that "Maļa" was a Silmarillion reference, but I guess it's more likely Greek (daughter of Atlas and mother of Hermes).

[libra]

ESA as a whole screwed up by not having Prometheus ready for Ariane 6. The rest is jsut the consequences of that.

TBH, turning point was 2014. One one hand, ESA screwed up on Ariane 6 with the CNES ugly solid-fuel design. On the other, it was the very year SpaceX truly rocked the barn and stormed the launch market for real, with early Falcon 9 variants. 2014 is the key moment the scales were tipped.

Since then Arianespace has carried on with Ariane 6 as a stopgap while acknowledging the time of reusable launchers had come at least: and Maiia is one side result of this.

I readily agree there is a lot of inertia and time lost compared to SpaceX: that's what happens when you get multiple state actors working together to get a large enough budget, and technical base: Europe as a whole, written large in space, for the best and for the worst. Plus the varied lobbies, notably the Franco-italian solid-fuel, are a nuisance.

[baldusi]

ESA as a whole screwed up by not having Prometheus ready for Ariane 6. The rest is jsut the consequences of that.

They did the best they could. If CNES had had it its way, Ariane 6 would have been built by CNES and be a mostly solid monster. They kept a mostly liquid Ariane 6, mostly industry designed, and got to work on the technologies needed for reusability (mostly Prometheus). Please remember that NASA personnel at the time was sure that the ATK entry (son of Ares-1) was the clear winner for Commercial Crew. It takes a lot to turn around the culture of these huge organizations.

[TrevorMonty]

ESA as a whole screwed up by not having Prometheus ready for Ariane 6. The rest is jsut the consequences of that.

Design choices on A6 were sound. Relying a new engine would most likely delay it by years. Just look at delays with Vulcan due to BE4 issues.

Sent from my SM-T733 using Tapatalk

[pippin]

ESA as a whole screwed up by not having Prometheus ready for Ariane 6. The rest is jsut the consequences of that.

Design choices on A6 were sound. Relying a new engine would most likely delay it by years. Just look at delays with Vulcan due to BE4 issues.

Sent from my SM-T733 using Tapatalk

And actually „delaying the whole thing for years“ would have been the only sound decision to be made about Ariane 6 at the time.
We’re all very lucky if the whole Ariane 6 project doesn’t end up being the death spell of the whole Ariane program.

[libra]

ESA as a whole screwed up by not having Prometheus ready for Ariane 6. The rest is jsut the consequences of that.

Design choices on A6 were sound. Relying a new engine would most likely delay it by years. Just look at delays with Vulcan due to BE4 issues.

Sent from my SM-T733 using Tapatalk

And actually „delaying the whole thing for years“ would have been the only sound decision to be made about Ariane 6 at the time.
We’re all very lucky if the whole Ariane 6 project doesn’t end up being the death spell of the whole Ariane program.

Well... no. Ariane 5 did wonders in the 2000's, but Hermes had made it a bloated, overpowered and unflexible launcher even before its first flight.
Arianespace made that lemon into lemonade by using its oversized lifting power for heavier and heavier comsats up to 7 mt, filling the 3 mt left (10 mt to GTO) with lighter comsats. They suceeded by literally "juggling" with their launch manifest, associating light and large, or two medium, comsats per flight. And they become pretty good at that: tweaking the launch manifest according to payload masses.

I would say that, as long as competition was essentially russian launchers - Proton and Sea Launch - it worked well.

But as soon as Falcon 9 apeared in 2010, Ariane 5 flaws, hidden by its smart launch schedule and lack of competition, become unbearable.

That's the reason why Ariane 5ME was dropped and Ariane 6 was accelerated - although mistakes were certainly made, notably by the CNES insistance on solids, and the pivot year of 2014 I already mentionned.

TBH, before Falcon 9 rocked the barn (say, circa 2012), Arianespace future launchers plans was
- existing Ariane 5
- Ariane 5 ME
- Ariane 6
This had to be scrapped in a hurry in 2014, for good or worse.

[pippin]

Nope. Doing that in a hurry was a huge mistake because what it got them was a multi-billion-Euro development program that resulted in just another launcher that is not going to be competitive.

For all that money it would have been cheaper to subsidize Ariane 5 a little more and then use the learnings from Falcon 9 for something better.

And when they made the decision this was already starting to become apparent. It was not yet clear whether reuse would pay off but what WAS already clear was, that IF it worked, it would dramatically change the landscape and render Ariane 6 uncompetitive.

So now they wasted all that money on both a launcher and a new pad and the result is a launcher that will require just as much subsidy as Ariane 5 and maybe even more due to the lower flight rates.

It remains to be seen whether ESA member states or France o whoever will now be ready to start yet another billion-Euro full-scale development program to replace a launcher already outdated on it's first flight.

If not, Ariane 6 is the end of the program.

And all of this just because CNES wanted to run a development program ASAP.

[edzieba]

For all that money it would have been cheaper to subsidize Ariane 5 a little more and then use the learnings from Falcon 9 for something better.

Financially, maybe.
But in terms of having an experienced workforce and industry to develop a new launcher, you need to start somewhere. Ariane 6 is a 'safe' launcher with little radically new, but it gets all the infrastructure into place for developing a more radical vehicle at a later date. Going straight to a reusable Ariane design would mean doing so from a standing start, and having to relearn the 'easy' lessons of an expendable launcher alongside new lessons of a reusable launcher.
And as maintaining a domestic capability is the entire point the Ariane programme exists in the first place, that has more value than just the financial cost of development or subsidisation.

[libra]

Except that in 2014 (third time...  ) Falcon 9 was just an expendable rocket among others. It went RLV in 2015 and beyond.

And Ariane 5ME was an even worse option, against Falcon 9, if it suceeded going RLV - which it did.

[JayWee]

Nice blast from the past:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20389148

19 November 2012

The Californian SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk has warned Europe it must replace its Ariane 5 rocket if it wants to keep up with his company.

And I do think I remember him telling Ariancespace that they should go reusable few years later.

[RedLineTrain]

Except that in 2014 (third time...  ) Falcon 9 was just an expendable rocket among others. It went RLV in 2015 and beyond.

And Ariane 5ME was an even worse option, against Falcon 9, if it suceeded going RLV - which it did.

I'm not sure that I understand your opinion fully, but of course the European industry was busy mocking SpaceX's reusability goals well before 2015.  For example, Arianespace at the infamous launch panel at the June 2013 Singapore Satellite Industry Forum.  The Grasshopper program was announced in 2011 after all.

The European industry was top-to-bottom on full notice at the initiation of Ariane 6 development.  Actually, it was on full notice at the initiation of serious discussions for Ariane 6.

[pippin]

Except that in 2014 (third time...  ) Falcon 9 was just an expendable rocket among others. It went RLV in 2015 and beyond.

That's what I said: it was unclear whether it would work, but SpaceX was already talking about it big time. It was also becoming apparent that Falcon 9 would be cheaper even in expendable mode.

The right decision at that point would have been to wait and do fundamental research into reuse yourself. Buy time.

And Ariane 5ME was an even worse option, against Falcon 9, if it suceeded going RLV - which it did.

To the contrary. Ariane 5 ME was a much better option. It would have met the goal @edzieba correctly mentions: to keep a qualified workforce. It would not have required building a new pad and infrastructure and it would have freed up a lot of money to do the very developments that Europe now has been falling behind on: technologies for reuse.
It doesn't matter that Ariane 5 ME would have been less competitive per flight. Even Ariane 6 will not fly very often, but the billions of Euros spent on development hurt because they will now be missing for development of new technologies.

[Rik ISS-fan]

Sorry but I don't see the relation of the competition between Ariane 6 and Falcon 9; with Maia Space, a France Ariane group subsidiary developing a Small launcher ~1mT to SSO 700km. Let's not redo the Ariane 6 discussion here, it's OFF TOPIC.
Again, this is a very unpleasant topic.

AFAIK the propper engine for Maia Space is ROMEO, not Prometheus. But Myra or Aquilla might be even better.
FLPP SCORE-D wasn't funded in 2012, that was the decision that lead to the Ariane 6 we know today.

Maia Space is a proposal for a reusable stage with a single engine, can this work? I think a design with multiple engines is more reliable for a reusable launcher.   

[Syl35]

AFAIK the propper engine for Maia Space is ROMEO, not Prometheus.

Maia Space is a proposal for a reusable stage with a single engine, can this work? I think a design with multiple engines is more reliable for a reusable launcher.

ROMEO?? It was a thrust chamber demonstrator, not a full engine like Prometheus. I don't think they will study another new engine, it will take to much time.

[libra]

...and I stick to my point, Ariane 5ME was no longer viable against Falcon 9; better to move, first to Ariane 6 and then to reusables.

As explained here.

https://www.frstrategie.org/web/documents/publications/autres/2017/2017-wohrer-these.pdf

And here, many times. Ariane 6 borrowed many elements from the canned Ariane 5ME except it was more flexible (no Hermes legacy) and thus cheaper.

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22ariane+5+ME%22%22Ariane+6%22%22cancelled%22

The plans before SpaceX disruption (2013-2015) was Ariane 5 ECA, Ariane 5 ME in 2016 as stop gap, Ariane 6 later: reusables not a priority as neither Falcon 9R nor Starlink had started at the time. The GEO comsat market was stagnating, as he had since the 1980's, and Arianespace ruled it, ahead of Proton. And it did not justified reusables, back then.
To Musk credit, he broke the deadlock and created his own cash cow with Starlink: feeding Falcon 9, 9R and Starship in the future.

Over the year 2014 they decided to skip Ariane 5ME and move straight to Ariane 6, and reusables... as soon as possible. Took many years, for sure...

[zubenelgenubi: edited search link]