Does Europe risk losing its direct access to space?

If everything had gone as planned, in mid-July 2022, we would be celebrating the second anniversary of the first flight of Ariane 6, and the small European launcher Vega C would have been flying for three or four years. It is not so. At the time of writing this column, the maiden flight of Vega C remains scheduled for July 13 at 1:13 p.m. Paris time, proof that Europeans are not superstitious. The first flight of Ariane 6 will not take place before 2023.

Crucial trials in Guyana this summer

Back to the present. The very first copy of Ariane 6 – which is not intended to fly – must be erected vertically on its launch table these days. It will undergo a battery of tests there in order to demonstrate that all the ground installations couple and communicate perfectly with the launcher, and in particular that it is possible to fill and drain it without risk. Much of this testing will be used to “debug” ground and onboard software. But it will be necessary to wait until the end of the year for these operations to end with two firings from the first floor, one long and one short.

This Ariane 6 will then be dismantled and replaced by the first flight model, for a cautious launch campaign, because it will be the first. However, for planetary conjunction reasons, the last Ariane 5, carrying the European Juice probe bound for the moons of Jupiter, must be launched between April 5 and 25, 2023. This mission will be a priority. If Ariane 6 could not take off in the first quarter, it will have to give up its place.

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A transition between Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 without a net

Thus, the transition from Ariane 5 to Ariane 6 will be accomplished without a safety net, and this is a first. In the past, the transition from Ariane 1 to Ariane 2/3 resulted in an eighteen-month overlap between the two versions. That from Ariane 2/3 to Ariane 4 lasted a good year, while Ariane 4 and Ariane 5 were operated in parallel for more than three years. This time, Europe will not have that luxury.

The situation is all the more uncomfortable as we could count on the Russian Soyuz launcher as a recourse in the event of difficulties with the ramp-up of Ariane 6. But the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the breakdown of cooperation erased this option overnight.

Development delays in launcher programs are commonplace. Who today remembers that SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy was three years late? It was enough for Elon Musk to place his roadster Tesla at the top for everyone to forget. On the European side, Vega C and Ariane 6 have suffered from traditional vagaries in exceptional circumstances… drain the floors, but also at the level of a revolutionary generator that will give great autonomy to the upper floor to accomplish complex missions.

In addition, two Vega failures, including one involving manufacturing safety margins, weakened the sector. Then, the Covid-19 almost brought the programs to their knees. Activities in Guyana were interrupted for a long time before resuming with half of the staff. Hence reduced productivity: what previously took a day to accomplish required four during the health crisis.

The weight of the conflict in Ukraine weighs on the sector

On the Old Continent, the subcontracting sector was also put to the test and the production chain was sometimes stopped while waiting for a single component whose supplier was unable to meet demand. Today, with the war in Ukraine, it is the logistics that no longer follow. If equipment breaks in French Guiana, you have to wait weeks to find a place on a cargo ship to bring a spare part back from Europe.

In Germany, the upper stage of Ariane 6 will be ignited this summer. But it’s been a long time since such a campaign has been carried out and it was necessary to show caution, to ensure that in no case a failure could cause the loss of the floor or, worse, of the bench. trials.

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Across the Rhine, impatience is growing and some would like to take advantage of the situation to recover contracts promised to Ariane 6 in favor of their own mini-launchers. In addition to risking temporarily losing its direct access to the firmament – a first for forty years – space Europe could be divided by seeing its non-competition agreements called into question.