A Follow On

Yesterday's post talked briefly (since it had just happened) about the final flight of the European Space Agency's Ariane 5.  There's a larger story lurking there that I didn't get to, which is that the ESA is, at best only temporarily, unable to launch anything.  

Their own development programs are stalled and won't be available until 2024 at best.  They're unable to go to Russia's Roscosmos, and apparently have no agreements with China.  Consequently, they're depending on SpaceX for the foreseeable future. 

The Ariane 5’s successor, Ariane 6, is still in development and appears increasingly unlikely to be ready for its inaugural launch before 2024. The Soyuz is no longer available in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Vega C remains grounded after a December 2022 launch failure, and its return to flight, previously planned for late this year, is facing delays after an anomaly during a static-fire test June 28 of that rocket’s Zefiro 40 motor. 

A partial workaround exists for the Vega C launches; a portion of the Vega C manifest could be launched on the less-powerful predecessor than the troubled C version, and they're arranging to build more of the older Vegas and resume launches in September, but for the bigger payloads there simply are no other options than SpaceX.  The ESA has talked about a reusable rocket called Themis, clearly patterned after the Falcon 9, but the first launches aren't even talked about as before 2028.

A year ago (to the day), I did a background story on what appears to be a developing European Rocket Industry, but while startups such as Isar Aerospace and Rocket Factory Augsburg are working on small launch vehicles whose first flights could take place before the end of the year, none of them are flying yet, let alone flying regularly.  

In October of '22, the ESA announced it was moving two missions to Falcon 9; last week's launch of the Euclid space telescope and the Hera mission to the same asteroid pair (Didymos and Dimorphos) that the DART mission crashed a probe into last September.  The launch window for Hera is a short period in October of '24.  I'm taking the bet that more missions will be moving to Falcon 9.  

At a June 29 briefing after a meeting of the ESA Council, the agency announced that the Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer, or EarthCARE, mission that has been moved from Soyuz to Vega C last October would instead likely fly on Falcon 9 in the second quarter of 2024. 

There are more moves in process.  The ESA has a fleet of navigation satellites, like the US's GPS, called Galileo.

At the same briefing, ESA officials said they were also in discussions with SpaceX for the launch of up to four Galileo satellites on Falcon 9 vehicles. “We are moving ahead with negotiations to conclude hopefully soon with SpaceX,” said Javier Benedicto, ESA’s director of navigation. That is contingent on concluding the negotiations with SpaceX as well as securing approvals from the European Union and its security agreement with SpaceX.

The Falcon 9 payload fairing with the logos of ESA and the Euclid spacecraft, in the days before last Saturday's launch from SLC-40 at the CCSFS.  Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust.

When you consider the versatility and the reliability of the Falcon 9, coupled with the twice-a-week launch cadence that SpaceX is striving for, there really is no alternative in the world.  As someone commented recently, "when it absolutely, positively has to be in orbit ASAP."