Ariane 6 is disappointingly good.
We’ve all seen that clip of an Arianespace executive saying that “SpaceX is daydreaming” and that they “shouldn’t wake them up”. We’ve all seen it. That was in 2014 and since then, things have changed a lot. As we all know, SpaceX started a meteoric rise overtaking their “rival” just two years after that now awkward clip.
Arianespace on the other hand, kept launching their reliable Ariane 5 including notable payloads such as the JWST in 2021 or the JUICE spacecraft in 2023. Ariane 5 never had the best cadence, but it did manage to launch once about every month which, for a rocket of that size, was undeniably good.
I liked Ariane 5. It wasn’t very cheap and looking at it would just make you go “yep, that’s a rocket” but it felt like it had a purpose, a real purpose.
What could’ve been…
While the Ariane people were peacefully minding their own business, which had always been the same, the day dreaming company actually managed to pull off one of their “dreams”. They landed and then re-used the same booster in 2017.
It took some time for SpaceX to ramp up cadence of Falcon 9 but once they did so in 2020, Arianespace and SpaceX, which were once considered to be rivals, were absolutely no where near each other. It would be like thinking your enemy in war is some kind of lunatic and then realizing he was George Washington when it’s already too late.
Luckily for the Kourou team, Ariane 5 was fully booked and Ariane 6 was already in the works. (although not very far still)
But here’s where I start to disagree with management. In 2017, at least some employees at Arianegroup must have started to fear the idea that SpaceX’s launch cadence could go exponential. Those employees’ fear either became what is known today as “Ariane Next” or they did not say anything. In 2017, Arianegroup — the company which designs and manufactures the Ariane rockets — should have seriously considered the idea of scrapping Ariane 6 immediately for a partially reusable design. They didn’t, and here we are today.
As of right now, I’m not an engineer nor a spaceflight project manager, but even with a whole year of margin, from 2018 to say 2026, would have been enough time to attempt to build and potentially fly… something.
By now, we could’ve been in a world where Arianespace could’ve picked up a serious cadence increase and could’ve put serious pressure on SpaceX. We could’ve potentially seen up to a launch per week, maybe even more. They had and still have all that they need to make a partially reusable rocket. Well, except the rocket itself.
In that world, Arianespace is should to shoulder with aerospace’s biggest company, only 12 years after they called them day dreamers. The Arianespace executives failed to realize SpaceX was not day dreaming, that’s ok, it happened to basically everyone. What isn’t ok is that they still dismissed them and their strategy even when they had proof that reusable rockets really were feasible, preferable and most importantly, worth it.
What next?
Ariane 6 is not a bad rocket. It’s powerful, it’s cheaper than its predecessors and it launches somewhat often. What I hate about Ariane 6 is that we are in a universe where a rocket like Ariane 6 from a private company funded by some of the most powerful countries on Earth, is still flying in an age where re-usability was proved to work nine years ago.
When something revolutionary happens, there are two key moments. The first is when that thing happens. The second is when someone else made it happen and competition appears. As a result of choosing to stick with the original Ariane 6 design, Europe completely missed their opportunity.
Don’t get me wrong, re-usability in Europe will happen, notably with Ariane Next and the work done with the “Themis programme”. It just could have happened a whole lot sooner.