War in Ukraine: Europe in space must speed up the Ariane 6 program

The invasion of Ukraine has put an end to a thirty-year exercise in cooperation between Russia and the West. Since 1992, both in the West and in the East, attempts have been made to establish interdependence in the hope that the exchanges and common interests thus created may help to avoid a brain drain towards “rogue states” and to ward off the specter of war. Alas, that was not enough.

From the destruction of this cooperation, all the partners emerge weakened and this is felt particularly in the field of launchers and more particularly in Europe. American manufacturers will no longer have the right to import Russian engines for their Atlas and Antares launchers. They will not suffer because they have built up sufficient stocks to meet their commitments. For the Atlas, following the invasion of Crimea in 2014, the decision was made to develop 100% American replacement reactors. Despite some delays, they are now in the process of qualifying and will make it possible to cut ties definitively.

Europe did not have the same foresight and the loss of the Soyuz should be more difficult to bear. The partnership born in 1996 to save the sector of the historic Korolev launcher was strengthened in an unprecedented way in 2003 with the decision to create a launch complex for the Soyuz directly in Guyana. From October 2011 to February 10, 2022, 27 Russian launchers took off from South America to place 95 satellites in orbit. These included 16 European Galileo navigation satellites (out of 28 launched to date) and the two largest observation satellites of the European Commission’s Copernicus system for environmental and climate monitoring. At the same time, 37 commercial Soyuz were fired from Kazakhstan and Russia on behalf of Arianespace, placing 458 satellites in orbit, including ten for the European Space Agency and the meteorological organization Eumetsat.

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A partnership with Russia that has become a trap

In the “European” range, the Soyuz thus filled the gap between the light launcher Vega and the heavy launcher Ariane 5. The decisions taken in 2014 to make Vega bigger and to offer an Ariane 6 available in a lighter version (Ariane 62) were not innocent. After the Crimean crisis, it was obvious that a fully European solution was preferable and the general idea was that eventually Vega C then Vega E, as well as Ariane 62, were going to be able to carry all the loads currently entrusted to the Russian launcher.

However, with the delay taken by Ariane 6 and Vega C, whose first flights slipped by two and three years respectively, partly due to the Covid but not solely, the situation was subtly reversed. With the depletion of stocks of Ariane 5, of which there are only five copies left to launch, and of Vega, of which there is only one model left in production, the recent policy was to transfer certain loads to the Soyuz initially planned on Ariane 6 to ease the pressure on the ramp-up of the new launcher.

The departure of the Russian teams from Kourou and the taking hostage of a commercial launch in Baikonur transformed this policy into a trap. Deprived of Soyuz, probably forever, Europe sees its autonomy of access to space called into question. The first flights of Vega C and Ariane 6 in 2022 will take place without a net. In the short term, it will also be necessary to find solutions for the satellites which find themselves without a launcher. Four of the Galileo system were planned this year for the maintenance of the constellation. A Franco-German spy satellite was to follow in December. It was initially planned on Ariane 6, then transferred to Soyuz. Here it is reassigned to Ariane 6, but at least a year late. As part of the Copernicus program, a Sentinel 1 radar satellite also had to relieve one of its predecessors, which had failed, to avoid a service interruption. Delays will have to be accepted and alternative solutions are necessary, even if it means calling on SpaceX. Above all, Ariane 6 no longer has the right to make mistakes, because there is no longer a “plan B” to ensure the interim.

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And for Vega C, one concern remains: the engine of its upper stage was produced in Dnipro, Ukraine. The little launcher has enough stocks to last a year, but what will happen after?