DECRYPTION – Ariane 6 will not take off before the end of 2023. Its customers could turn to SpaceX and the Indian New Space.
Serious setback for Europe. Ariane 6 will not take off before the end of 2023, thus accumulating three years behind its initial commissioning schedule. This bad news was announced on Wednesday by Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), the development and qualification authority for the successor to the European rocket Ariane 5. ESA, Cnes, in charge of the new Ariane 6 launch pad at Kourou in French Guiana, and Ariane Group, the rocket builder, specified that “the maiden flight is postponed to the fourth quarter of 2023». Ce retard a «multiple causes», underlines Daniel Neuenschwander, director of space transport at ESA.
Among these reasons: the health crisis, which slowed down the work. But also longer than expected tests for the operation of the cryogenic “arms”, which make it possible to fill the launcher and the APU, the auxiliary engine, as well as the interactions between Ariane 6 and the launch pad, controlled by software …
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