Does Europe have to develop a reusable launcher, or is Ariane 6 fine for the launch demand Europe has.In Europe politicians are destroying their own economy for Environmental misconceptions. There are more than a 1000 more important things to develop than reusable rockets. Engines can't be tested because of the environmental misconceptions. A lot of testing has to take place, to figure out what reuse method works best. Smaller systems use less fuel and 'pollute' less. So they should test on smaller vehicles. So beter do a test of a 50% scale SUSIE on Vega C/D/E than on Ariane 6, or on a even smaller vehicle.I don't want promotion of piss pore performance on the development of Ariane 6; by awarding follow on development contracts before Ariane 6 is operational. Arianegroup should deliver what they promise otherwise as they did with Ariane 6 development, they destroy the whole European launch industry. I think the real reason for Ariane 6 development delays haven't be published, because the company at fold will be held accountable for 1.5years without production demand on all dedicated Ariane 6 production assets. That will be a huge claim.
Quote from: baldusi on 10/01/2022 09:53 pmIf they never start to work on this, at least in a serious way, they will again go about doing a thousand studies about "how to copy SpaceX without it being too obvious". The Californian company will have done trades on Starship for ten years by the time they start work on something similar. Of course they will have to copy if they don't put years of effort on designing, testing, redesigning, etc. As much as I think SUSIE as proposed is a bad design, with imaginary numbers of margin, it is their design. I would rather have Europe think out their own solution for a reusable upperstage/spaceship to get something different.Not unlike how RocketLab designed Neutron: a one for one competitor with F9 with absolutely different technological solutions in every possible way. Europe needs to do something like that. So I think SUSIE is a good place to start the thinking. But for God's sake, don't try to deliver as presented.Does Europe have to develop a reusable launcher, or is Ariane 6 fine for the launch demand Europe has.In Europe politicians are destroying their own economy for Environmental misconceptions. There are more than a 1000 more important things to develop than reusable rockets. Engines can't be tested because of the environmental misconceptions. A lot of testing has to take place, to figure out what reuse method works best. Smaller systems use less fuel and 'pollute' less. So they should test on smaller vehicles. So beter do a test of a 50% scale SUSIE on Vega C/D/E than on Ariane 6, or on a even smaller vehicle.I don't want promotion of piss pore performance on the development of Ariane 6; by awarding follow on development contracts before Ariane 6 is operational. Arianegroup should deliver what they promise otherwise as they did with Ariane 6 development, they destroy the whole European launch industry. I think the real reason for Ariane 6 development delays haven't be published, because the company at fold will be held accountable for 1.5years without production demand on all dedicated Ariane 6 production assets. That will be a huge claim.
If they never start to work on this, at least in a serious way, they will again go about doing a thousand studies about "how to copy SpaceX without it being too obvious". The Californian company will have done trades on Starship for ten years by the time they start work on something similar. Of course they will have to copy if they don't put years of effort on designing, testing, redesigning, etc. As much as I think SUSIE as proposed is a bad design, with imaginary numbers of margin, it is their design. I would rather have Europe think out their own solution for a reusable upperstage/spaceship to get something different.Not unlike how RocketLab designed Neutron: a one for one competitor with F9 with absolutely different technological solutions in every possible way. Europe needs to do something like that. So I think SUSIE is a good place to start the thinking. But for God's sake, don't try to deliver as presented.
Quote from: Rik ISS-fan on 10/02/2022 10:47 amQuote from: baldusi on 10/01/2022 09:53 pmIf they never start to work on this, at least in a serious way, they will again go about doing a thousand studies about "how to copy SpaceX without it being too obvious". The Californian company will have done trades on Starship for ten years by the time they start work on something similar. Of course they will have to copy if they don't put years of effort on designing, testing, redesigning, etc. As much as I think SUSIE as proposed is a bad design, with imaginary numbers of margin, it is their design. I would rather have Europe think out their own solution for a reusable upperstage/spaceship to get something different.Not unlike how RocketLab designed Neutron: a one for one competitor with F9 with absolutely different technological solutions in every possible way. Europe needs to do something like that. So I think SUSIE is a good place to start the thinking. But for God's sake, don't try to deliver as presented.Does Europe have to develop a reusable launcher, or is Ariane 6 fine for the launch demand Europe has.In Europe politicians are destroying their own economy for Environmental misconceptions. There are more than a 1000 more important things to develop than reusable rockets. Engines can't be tested because of the environmental misconceptions. A lot of testing has to take place, to figure out what reuse method works best. Smaller systems use less fuel and 'pollute' less. So they should test on smaller vehicles. So beter do a test of a 50% scale SUSIE on Vega C/D/E than on Ariane 6, or on a even smaller vehicle.I don't want promotion of piss pore performance on the development of Ariane 6; by awarding follow on development contracts before Ariane 6 is operational. Arianegroup should deliver what they promise otherwise as they did with Ariane 6 development, they destroy the whole European launch industry. I think the real reason for Ariane 6 development delays haven't be published, because the company at fold will be held accountable for 1.5years without production demand on all dedicated Ariane 6 production assets. That will be a huge claim. Far as I know A6 development is going to plan. The schedule slips are no more than usual for new LV, COVID hasn't helped. The delays are nothing like SLS. Compared to Vulcan they aren't doing to badly.The $4.4B development cost does seem very high given competition are doing it for lot less. F9R V1.2 would be around $1B. Vulcan is likely to be $1-2B. Terran R <$1B and it is a F9R class LV. Smaller LVs like Neutron and Beta <$500M.With addition of NGIS SRMs Beta could also compete in GEO satellite launch market.
Ah. There goes the logic. As per F-35...
Technology and space has become clearly a most important intelligence and military asset that Europe needs to keep at any cost. The future is clearly on at least partially reusable launchers. And Europe has botched this segment of the space chain. Regrettably they need to work right now on short term solutions (specially on the medium polar segment), medium term (partially reusable heavy (16 to 25 tonnes to LEO) launchers, and long term (fully reusable).They shouldn't go full bending metal on SUSIE, that's clear. But keep studying it, and ideally agree on a small set of top-level requirements that it must comply with. Then, add a couple of extra companies getting the same requirements but absolute design freedom to achieve them.
Quote from: baldusi on 10/03/2022 06:54 pmTechnology and space has become clearly a most important intelligence and military asset that Europe needs to keep at any cost. The future is clearly on at least partially reusable launchers. And Europe has botched this segment of the space chain. Regrettably they need to work right now on short term solutions (specially on the medium polar segment), medium term (partially reusable heavy (16 to 25 tonnes to LEO) launchers, and long term (fully reusable).They shouldn't go full bending metal on SUSIE, that's clear. But keep studying it, and ideally agree on a small set of top-level requirements that it must comply with. Then, add a couple of extra companies getting the same requirements but absolute design freedom to achieve them.Unfortunately "At any cost" has gotten them A6. Interesting strategy. Remember though that the funding usually goes through ESA, and ESA has other members than those of the EU, the UK, Canada and Israel to name a few.
Quote from: baldusi on 10/03/2022 06:54 pmTechnology and space has become clearly a most important intelligence and military asset that Europe needs to keep at any cost. The future is clearly on at least partially reusable launchers. And Europe has botched this segment of the space chain. Regrettably they need to work right now on short term solutions (specially on the medium polar segment), medium term (partially reusable heavy (16 to 25 tonnes to LEO) launchers, and long term (fully reusable).They shouldn't go full bending metal on SUSIE, that's clear. But keep studying it, and ideally agree on a small set of top-level requirements that it must comply with. Then, add a couple of extra companies getting the same requirements but absolute design freedom to achieve them.Unfortunately "At any cost" has gotten them A6.
I don't want to sound like a broken record but A6 is actually a wonderful achievement in comparison to the four solids monster that CNES was pushing. I think they actually saved the program with that.
Quote from: baldusi on 10/09/2022 03:25 amI don't want to sound like a broken record but A6 is actually a wonderful achievement in comparison to the four solids monster that CNES was pushing. I think they actually saved the program with that.I don't think it matters. The CNES design and the current design are already obsolete.
Wrong, wrong and wrong.ESA has 22 member states. Neither Canada, nor Israel are member states of ESA.Canada has a Cooperation Agreement with ESA and has a seat on the ESA council. As such they have a voice in how ESA spends its money. But Canada is not a member state of ESA.Three European countries are Associate Members of ESA.And five EU states have a Cooperation Agreement (ECS - European Cooperating State) with ESA, similar to the one Canada has, but WITHOUT a seat on the ESA council.Israel is neiter a member state, nor an associate member. And it also is not an ECS.There is a cooperation agreement between ESA and ISA (the Israeli Space Agency), but it is similar to the agreement between ESA and NASA. It does not give ISA any leverage in what ESA spends its funds on.
The really bad thing here, if ESA starts to copy F9 now (and that would include minor improvements), they would again end up with a system that is outdated, when reaching the market.
A lot of patronizing about the EU space industry here ...Well, I think A6 would have been a good design, if the Space Industry would have stayed in the status quo, that reuseability simply does not work. A6 is a good last decades design.The really bad thing here, if ESA starts to copy F9 now (and that would include minor improvements), they would again end up with a system that is outdated, when reaching the market.The good argument against reusability has always been, that the base cost are so high, that it does not make sense, if you have very limited payloads. Either the payloads grow (which is likely taking the huge cost reduction in transport to LEO), or the market is already saturated by SpaceX. Pick your poison.
