Will we see Ariane 6 launch in 2023? Maybe, maybe not. While confident of seeing Ariane 6 launch later this year, CNES CEO Philippe Baptiste remains cautious, considering it was necessary to deliver “a speech of truth.” The first flight of Ariane 6, “if all goes well, will take place in 2023, probably at the end of 2023″. This first launch of the future European heavy launcher, which is one of the instruments of European sovereignty for access to space, “is still subject to the combined tests not uncovering a major technical problem. Opportunities are possible in the coming months. There is no use in having any discourse other than this discourse on technical truth.”
The first launch of Ariane 6 is planned for the fourth quarter of 2023 instead of summer 2023, provided the test campaign goes as planned. Which is not won, since since its launch in 2014 the program has accumulated hazards of all kinds, including meteorological ones like this very violent and localized storm that hit the DLR (German Aerospace Center) test center this summer in Lampoldshausen swamped the fire test campaign of a complete Ariane 6 upper stage. So far, all European space leaders seemed confident that the first Ariane 6 flight would not be delayed until 2024.
Guiana Space Center is technically unemployed?
2022 was an “annus horribilis” year for European launchers. Nothing went as planned. And the nightmare lasted until the end of the year. It all started with the withdrawal of the Russians from Kourou at the end of February after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the end of the Soyuz adventure at the Guiana Space Center (CSG). Then ESA (European Space Agency) announced the delay of the first flight of Ariane 6, which will in principle make its first flight at the end of 2023. And finally the crash of the new Italian launch vehicle Vega C during its first commercial flight at the end of December ended, weighing on the morale of the European space sector (launchers and satellites). “The latest bad news is the failure of Vega-C”, Philippe Baptiste also agreed on December 20th, reiterating that “there is a real desire to return to flight as soon as possible”.
As a result, the Guiana Space Center (CSG), Europe’s spaceport, has its load plan as of this writing for only the last two Ariane 5 launches this year, plus Vega (two) and Vega C launches. The CNE will take advantage of this low activity “to upgrade the base” with an investment plan of almost 600 million euros to reduce the delays between launches, digitize the CSG and reduce its carbon footprint.
In addition, said the CEO of CNES, this launch vehicle crisis must prompt ESA to review the rules on geographic return, which stipulate that funding from each of the 22 member states results in equivalent industrial benefits for its national companies. When it comes to “creating new players, we see the limits of the system when we are in a competitive market,” affirmed Philippe Baptiste. “We can’t have both the geographic ROI and compete in a competition where we want to make a really cheap launch vehicle. At some point you have to make a decision,” he says. He had already said that in the Senate. But despite an agreement signed between France, Germany and Italy, the three leading nations in the field of launch vehicles, nothing has progressed.
