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Цитировать04.10.2008 / 00:05    К 2016 году Европейское космическое агентство намерено создать новый вариант носителя Ariane-5

     Европейское космическое агентство намерено к 2016 году разработать новый вариант ракеты Ariane-5 - Mid Life Evolution (ME). Основным отличием нового варианта ракеты будет использование нового двигателя на верхней ступени. Новый носитель сможет выводить на переходную геостационарную орбиту полезный груз до 11200 кг. Это на 16 % больше, чем ныне эксплуатируемая ракета Ariane-5ECA. Решение о финансирование разработки должно быть принято в ноябре нынешнего года.

     - К.И.  

ЦитироватьESA plans for 2016 'mid life evolution' of its Ariane 5
By Rob Coppinger
The next version of the European Space Agency's Ariane 5, the Mid Life Evolution (ME), could be operational in 2016 with a payload to geostationary transfer orbit capability of 11,200kg (24,600lb), 16% more than Arianespace's in-service Ariane 5 ECA.

Developed by ESA with industry and manufactured by EADS Astrium, the ME, the fifth variant of the Ariane 5 since the Generic, will also provide a 21,000kg to low-Earth orbit capability.

While the lower stages of the Ariane 5 are unchanged, the ME upper stage will require a new engine, the Vinci, now undergoing ground tests, that can achieve three restarts in orbit and a longer fairing to encapsulate two large satellites.

To achieve a 2016 in-service date ESA needs its member states' ministerial councils in November and in 2011 to approve the funding of the rocket.

"[We will] take into account the Ariane 5 ECA experience...and treatment of major obsolesence of equipment and hardware," says ESA, for which the operational Ariane 5 would be 14 years old by 2016.

ESA has had its Future Launcher Preparatory Programme looking to develop a replacement for the Ariane with a service entry of around 2020. The Ariane 5 ME, with its start of operations in 2016, could be that future launcher.

ЦитироватьЕвропейское космическое агентство намерено к 2016 году разработать новый вариант ракеты Ariane-5 - Mid Life Evolution (ME). Основным отличием нового варианта ракеты будет использование нового двигателя на верхней ступени. Новый носитель сможет выводить на переходную геостационарную орбиту полезный груз до 11200 кг. Это на 16 % больше, чем ныне эксплуатируемая ракета Ariane-5ECA.

ЦитироватьПродолжение программы Vinci (R): важное решение по европейским ракетным двигателям

SAFRAN Group, Пресс-релиз от 10 декабря 2008 года

На собрании Европейского Космического Агентства 25-26 ноября европейские министры, отвечающие за космическую деятельность, подтвердили финансирование подготовительного этапа разработки двигателя многократного включения Vinci (R) и новой криогенной верхней ступени ракеты-носителя Ariane 5. Этап продлится с 2009 до 2011 гг.

 Это решение укрепляет ведущую позицию европейского носителя и его способность удовлетворять все возрастающие требования заказчиков в течение долгого времени. Решение об этапе полномасштабной разработки будет принято в 2011 г. для обеспечения квалификационных летных испытаний в 2016/2017 гг. Главной целью компании Snecma (SAFRAN Group) сейчас является обеспечение к 2011 г запуска двигателя с сопловым насадком. в исполнении, сравнимом с современной летной конфигурацией
 
Двигатель Vinci (R) успешно прошел все испытания и все ключевые этапы разработки: подтверждение технологической реализации расширительного цикла, максимальная тяга двигателя, демонстрация возможности повторного зажигания, испытания раскрытия раздвижного сопла, выполненного из композита с керамической матрицей, и испытания с включением более чем на 2300 секунд одного и того же двигателя (тройное время полета).
 
«Группа SAFRAN довольна решением Европейских министров по космосу продолжить разработку двигателя многократного включения Vinci (R),. Успех испытаний двигателя Vinci (R) позволяет нам приступить к следующему этапу этой программы и укрепить лидирующую позицию SAFRAN в этом секторе», - заявил Марк Вантр, вице-президент группы SAFRAN, курирующий напрвление авиационных и ракетных двигательных установок .

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SAFRAN - международная Группа, работающая в области высоких технологий и специализирующаяся в трех областях деятельности: авиационные и космические двигательные установки, авиационное оборудование, оборона и безопасность. На 31 декабря 2007 года в Группе работало 63 000 человек в более чем 30 странах. Торговый оборот компании составляет свыше 12 миллиардов евро. SAFRAN Group, объединяющая несколько известных компаний, самостоятельно и в партнерстве занимает лидирующие позиции в указанных сферах на европейском и мировых рынках. SAFRAN является открытой компанией, и зарегистрирована на бирже NYSE Euronext Paris и входит в первую сотню по индексам Euronext.

ЦитироватьНекоторые европейцы ругались: слишком долго тянули с Винчи, слишком долго убаюкивали себя мантрами "экспертов" про грядущее уменьшение масс спутников.

ЦитироватьDuring the first half of 2009, Arianespace signed 10 new contracts for
geosynchronous communications and broadcasting: Hispasat-1E (Spanish
operator), Arabsat-5C & Badr-7 (Arabsat), Yamal-401 & -402 (Russian
Gazprom), Intelsat New Dawn (Intelsat), JCsat-13 (Japanese operator), Alphasat
I-XL (ESa/Inmarsat), ABS-2/ST-3 (Hong Kong), ST-2 (Singapore/Ta

ЦитироватьESA signs contract for Ariane 5 rocket enhancements
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: December 21, 2009

The European Space Agency has awarded a contract to the maker of the Ariane 5 rocket for early development of a new upper stage to increase the launcher's capacity.
 
(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/10183.jpg)    
The Vinci engine. Credit: EADS Astrium

The contract covers the development of a more powerful version of the rocket with a new upper stage and upgraded avionics and software. The enhancements are part of the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution program.

Astrium says the contract is worth more than $200 million over the next two years.

The upper stage will be powered by a new Vinci engine capable of restarting several times to optimize communications satellite launches to geosynchronous transfer orbit. Officials say the new Ariane 5 configuration could be in commercial service by 2017.

The Ariane 5 rocket has flown 49 times since an ill-fated debut launch in 1996, accumulating a record of 35 straight successes since 2003. Earlier versions of the Ariane have been operational since 1979.

"This contract marks a new era for Astrium," said Alain Charmeau, CEO of Astrium Space Transportation. "It's a strong vote of confidence in our abilities that, moreover, comes just as we are about to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the very first Ariane launch on (Dec. 24, 1979). We are all set for another 30 years or more of technological advancements and market success."

The Vinci would replace the HM7B upper stage engine now flying on the Ariane 5 ECA rocket configuration. The HM7B engine is based on the propulsion system of the Ariane 4 rocket family.

The cryogenic Vinci engine would permit the Ariane 5 rocket to deliver 12 metric tons -- nearly 26,500 pounds -- to geosynchronous transfer orbit. The Ariane 5 ECA's capacity to the same orbit today is 10 metric tons, or about 22,000 pounds.

Arianespace, the rocket's commercial operator, currently launches two communications satellites at a time on the Ariane 5.

The Vinci could also allow the Ariane 5 to deliver cargo directly into geosynchronous orbit, reducing the fuel needed by satellites and extending their useful lives.

Originally scheduled for a maiden flight in 2006, the Vinci engine development program was slowed in 2005 after budget cuts.

ESA is in charge of funding major European launcher development programs and oversees the partnership with Arianespace for commercial flights. The agency is currently evaluating the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution program and a new launcher to replace the workhorse rocket after 2020.

The ESA Ministerial Council will consider both programs at a meeting next fall.

"We are giving contracts to industry now that we are at the maturation of the project in time for the next Ministerial to make the decision if we move ahead with the evolution of Ariane or not, depending on the situation and the maturity of the technologies," said Antonio Fabrizi, ESA's director of launchers.

The council could decide whether to upgrade the Ariane 5 or focus on development of new vehicle, called the Next-Generation Launcher.

"At the next Ministerial meeting, we shall have to decide on the evolution of Ariane and on the longer term new family of European launchers," Fabrizi said in an October interview.

According to Fabrizi, ESA may look toward a smaller alternative to the Ariane 5 that is better equipped to launch the agency's institutional missions. Only the largest ESA spacecraft launch on the Ariane 5 because of its size.

ЦитироватьРакета-носитель "Ариан" отмечает свое 30-летие в обстановке жесткой конкуренции

ПАРИЖ, 25 декабря. (ИТАР-ТАСС). Главная европейская РН "Ариан" отмечает свое 30-летие в обстановке жесткой конкуренции. Даже через 30 лет после первого запуска с космодрома Куру во Французской Гвиане, который открыл перед Евросоюзом новую эру в области космических исследований, ракета "Ариан" остается вполне конкурентоспособной на рынке коммерческих запусков, несмотря на появление более дешевых соперников, прежде всего китайских носителей.

К настоящему времени были проведены 193 запуска ракет "Ариан", которые вывели на орбиту около 238 спутников из общего числа 277. Причем в некоторых случаях "Ариан" выводила на орбиту сразу два спутника.

Первый успешный испытательный запуск по программе "Ариан" состоялся 24 декабря 1979 г., через девять дней после неудачной попытки. Эта программа была начата в 1973 г. после отказа американцев запускать европейские спутники в коммерческих целях. Исполнители программы "Ариан" сделали выводы из неудач ее предшественника, РН "Европа", и поручили выполнение работ специалистам французского Национального центра космических исследований (КНЕС).

Наряду с государственными запусками научных или военных спутников, коммерческие запуски стали приобретать все большее значение с появлением носителя "Ариан-4", программа разработки которого была одобрена на уровне Евросоюза в 1982 г. Что касается тяжелого носителя "Ариан-5", то ключевыми датами для него стал 1984 г., когда Франция начала работы над его черновым проектом, 1987 г., когда Евросоюз принял решение о его реализации, и 1996 г., когда состоялся первый запуск этой РН. Такие данные сообщил французским журналистам президент-генеральный директор компании "Арианспейс" Жан-Ив Ле Галль.

Однако от весьма дорогой возможности использовать этот носитель для запуска астронавтов пришлось отказаться в 1990 годах. В результате программа "Гермес" приказала долго жить, поскольку у Евросоюза не было достаточной политической воли для ее реализации", - вспоминает Жерар Бреар, технический директор компании "Астриум спейс транспортейшн". После первой неудачи в 1996 г. и неудачного старта тяжелого варианта носителя в 2002 г. "Ариан-5" в конечном итоге утвердилась на рынке коммерческих запусков как тяжелый носитель, и к настоящему времени имеет в послужном списке 35 удачных запусков подряд.

Компания "Арианспейс" извлекла уроки из первых трудных лет работы и сосредоточила усилия на подготовке запусков и операционной деятельности по их контролю, а "Астриум спейс транспортейшн", космический филиал Европейского аэрокосмического и оборонного концерна (ЕАДС), стала заниматься непосредственным изготовлением носителей.

"Ариан-5" будет уникальным носителем для тяжелых спутников в предстоящие 10-15 лет, пока не появятся более мощные "Ариан-6". На космодроме Куру во Французской Гвиане на помощь Евросоюзу для запуска более легких спутников придут российские "Союзы", строительство стартовой площадки для которых уже заканчивается. Что касается самых малых спутников, то для их вывода на орбиту планируется использовать итальянские носители "Вега".

В контексте общемировой конкуренции, отмеченной появлением на рынке коммерческих запусков Китая, "Арианспейс" делает ставку на качество своих услуг. "В сфере цен чувствуется все растущее давление: сегодня наши цены значительно выше, чем у конкурентов, - признает Жан-Ив Ле Галль. - Тем не менее, мы пока обгоняем наших конкурентов, и 2009 год был весьма удачным для нас, поскольку мы гарантируем надежность, доступность и уникальный интерфейс для наших клиентов". Он признался, что был шокирован, когда в марте европейский оператор коммерческих спутников "Евтелсат" заключил контракт с Китаем.

"Двойной запуск, то есть запуск сразу двух спутников, дает возможность сократить разницу в ценах, но и конкуренция здесь очень жесткая, - считает Бреар. - Но этот принцип имеет значительные преимущества, поскольку сегодняшние операторы на рынке коммерческих запусков - это прежде всего финансисты. Если их спутник лежит на складе в ожидании запуска конкурента, это значит, что деньги не работают".

ЦитироватьEurope's Launch Infrastructure Costs Loom Large Amid Fiscal Crisis
By Peter B. de Selding

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain — Confronting a budget crisis that likely will take years to resolve, European governments have begun debating how to manage the increased operating costs associated with three separate launch vehicles and launch installations at Europe's spaceport in French Guiana.

A parallel debate is taking place over whether Europe's governments can afford to invest in a major improvement to the current Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket even as they start designing a vehicle to succeed it.

In an illustration of how the discussion is being played out, the head of the German Aerospace Center, DLR, said here that he is "totally against the idea of an Ariane 6 vehicle." But Johann-Dietrich Woerner said Germany could, at least in principle, support co-investment in an improved Ariane 5 even as work starts on a successor rocket.

The French government, which is expected to finance the biggest share of the post-Ariane 5 rocket even as it pays for nearly 50 percent of the current Ariane 5, has indicated it would use a public bond issue as part of a broader economic-stimulus package to finance work on the next-generation vehicle.

European governments in 2008 agreed to continue preliminary work on an Ariane 5 Midlife Extension vehicle that would employ a cryogenic upper stage and would increase Ariane 5's performance in its core business: simultaneously launching two telecommunications satellites into geostationary transfer orbit.

The current Ariane 5 ECA rocket is able to loft two telecommunications satellites with a combined weight of nearly 9,000 kilograms. A series of small upgrades, including reducing its weight, should, by 2015, nudge that capacity to close to 10,000 kilograms, according to the French space agency, CNES.

European Space Agency (ESA) governments in late 2008 agreed to fund initial work on the Midlife Extension vehicle, with the funds needed to complete development and testing — 1 billion euros ($1.24 billion) or more — to be decided in 2012 at a meeting of ESA government ministers.

Equipped with a new, cryogenic upper stage, the Ariane 5 Midlife Extension vehicle would be able to carry two satellites weighing a combined 11,500 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit starting around 2017.

But these governments will also be asked in 2012 to approve the start of work on an Ariane 5 successor, to debut around 2025, and possible upgrades to the small Vega rocket, whose inaugural flight has been delayed to early 2011.

Still unclear at this point is whether ESA members will be asked to pay substantially more for the operation of the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana once the spaceport is fully operational with three vehicles at three launch pads. A European version of Russia's Soyuz rocket is scheduled to begin operations at the Guiana center late this year.

The Arianespace commercial launch consortium of Evry, France, which will be operating Soyuz and Vega in addition to Ariane 5, has begun assessing maintenance and operating costs and is advising ESA and CNES rocket-design teams to take account of life-cycle operating costs as well as the costs of a rocket's construction.

Addressing the Space Propulsion 2010 conference here May 3, Arianespace Program Director Louis Laurent gave the example of helium, used to pressurize fuel tanks and flush fuel lines. Once an engine has been designed for helium, it is difficult to switch to some other gas. But helium, he said, is expensive to use.

Laurent said designers should take account of how much different types of fuel — solid, cryogenic or storable propellants — and other consumables cost to produce and to use over the life cycle of a rocket that may remain in operation for 20 years or more.

Similarly, Laurent said Ariane 5's current economic model, based on launching two satellites at a time, was originally designed to reduce costs to satellite owners. It is not, he said, a requirement of the market.

"Operating-cost constraints need to be included fr om the early design phase," Laurent said. "Beyond the classic constraints of reliability and launcher cost, robustness — meaning the ease of production and operations — will be drivers for future success."

Patrice Plotard, head of future launchers at Astrium Space Transportation, the prime contractor for the Ariane 5 rocket, said whatever vehicle follows Ariane 5, it needs "a big reduction in operating costs. In our discussions with our engineers, this is one of the main drivers" for the future vehicle

"We need to design for producibility, and not just design for performance, which was the main goal in the past," Plotard said. "We need to consider it as an industrial product. This requires a change in mindset even within Astrium Space Transportation. It cannot be just an excellent product from a production viewpoint."

Michel Eymard, director of launchers at CNES, said the post-Ariane 5 vehicle needs to be designed to provide a 40 percent reduction in the cost of putting a kilogram of payload into orbit compared with today's Ariane 5 ECA rocket. It also needs to be easy enough to operate so that it can change its mission within two weeks of a launch.

Early CNES designs of the post-Ariane 5 rocket suggest a modular vehicle that typically would launch one large telecommunications satellite at a time, not two, and would be able to survive mainly on the lim ited market for European government payloads. Today's Ariane 5 is mainly a commercial launcher that would require substantially more government investment to be able to survive primarily on government business.

ЦитироватьAn initial design review of a new, more-powerful upper stage for Europe's Ariane 5 rocket has concluded that the stage is too heavy to deliver the required performance, according to European government and industry officials.
One official said the evaluation, called the Stage and System Concept Review and conducted at Astrium Space Transportation's Les Mureaux, France, facilities the week of June 4, is almost certain to revive questions about whether the proposed Ariane 5 Mid-life Evolution (Ariane 5 ME) investment is worthwhile.
European government officials have been debating for more than a year whether spending some 2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) on Ariane 5 ME, which likely will not be in service before 2017, should be scrapped in favor of proceeding directly with a next-generation rocket that ultimately would replace Ariane 5.
The debate remains sensitive as some in Europe, notably the German Aerospace Center, have made strong endorsements of Ariane 5 ME and said they are not prepared to discuss an Ariane 5 replacement at this point.
The 18-nation European Space Agency (ESA) in November 2008 agreed to continue work on the Ariane 5 ME upper stage, notably its Vinci restartable engine, through 2011 with a budget of 357 million euros.
Vinci, developed by Snecma Motors, a division of Paris-based Safran, has been in development for a decade but has suffered from gaps in funding, notably in 2002 as Vinci funds were transferred to current Ariane 5 issues following a launch failure.
In December, ESA awarded Astrium Space Transportation, Ariane 5's prime contractor, an Ariane 5 ME system-design contract valued at 157 million euros, which was drawn from the budget approved in late 2008.
Government officials, in approving the 2008 investment, said they would decide in 2011 or 2012 whether to proceed with full development of the Ariane 5 ME stage, which they estimated would cost an additional 1.5 billion euros.
The Stage and System Concept Review was intended as a six-month checkup on the work.
Equipped with the new Vinci upper stage, the Ariane 5 ME would be able to carry two commercial telecommunications satellites weighing a combined 12,000 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit, compared with around 9,000 kilograms for the current Ariane 5 ECA vehicle.
The performance improvement would make it much easier for the Arianespace launch consortium of Evry, France, to find two compatible satellites without having to worry about bumping into the vehicle's performance ceiling, especially since satellites weighing 5,000 kilograms have become standard in the commercial market.
But the French government is also beginning early designs for a new Ariane rocket that would carry only one satellite at a time and would feature a modular design enabling it to handle lighter Earth observation and scientific satellites as well as commercial telecommunications spacecraft weighing up to 6,000 kilograms.
The French government has announced plans to use a public bond issue to invest 250 million euros in preliminary work on this vehicle, which in principle could be ready for launch in 2025, according to current planning.
In a June 9 interview, ESA Launcher Director Antonio Fabrizi acknowledged that the initial design of Ariane 5 ME raised questions about its performance, price and development schedule.
But he said that is what the review was intended to do. The review, he said, would be completed in July and will be used to steer Ariane 5 ME development in the coming year.
"Our view is that the recurring cost of building the Ariane 5 ME should be no higher than the cost of building the current ECA version of Ariane 5," Fabrizi said. "Performance is of course a must, but the cost of manufacturing is also an issue, as is the schedule. We are under pressure from our member states to have the vehicle available by around 2016. We'll see whether we can make this date, but in any event an Ariane 5 ME arrival in 2020 would be too late, in which case we will do something else."

ЦитироватьFri, 22 October, 2010
Europeans Struggle for Consensus on Launcher Development Strategy
By Peter B. de Selding

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan — Europe's launch-vehicle industrial base is heading into a period of turmoil as it introduces Russia's Soyuz rocket into its ranks and struggles for consensus on whether limited resources should be spent improving the current Ariane 5 ECA heavy-lift rocket or preparing its successor, or both, European government and industry officials said.

The situation has been made more difficult by issues with the Ariane 5 quality control system that resulted in the cancellation of three launch campaigns since late 2009 because of a faulty helium pressurization component that likely will force the Arianespace launch consortium to report a loss for 2010.

The component in question, whose defect was traced to a change in production practice, has cost Evry, France-based Arianespace "tens of millions" of euros, Arianespace Chief Executive Jean-Yves Le Gall said Oct. 20. Arianespace markets and operates the Ariane 5 rocket.

The cost estimate takes into account the fact that Arianespace and its industrial contractors incurred many of the costs associated with three launch preparation campaigns, only to abort them because of the helium pressurization issue.

"In terms of costs, we have conducted six launch campaigns, even though we have launched only three times" in 2010, Le Gall said here after a Russian Soyuz rocket, marketed commercially by the French-Russian Starsem joint venture, lofted six mobile communications satellites for Globalstar Inc. of Milpitas, Calif.

Le Gall questioned whether the current launch industry practice of imposing only "best efforts" conditions on suppliers is sufficient, or whether penalties for defective products should be introduced.

The helium issue led Arianespace, the French space agency and the European Space Agency (ESA) to order an audit of Ariane 5 quality control. A separate audit was ordered by Astrium Space Transportation of Les Mureaux, France, which is the Ariane 5 prime contractor.

In an Oct. 18 statement, Astrium said its audit concluded that "maintaining competitiveness remained tenuous and needed to be better guaranteed." The company said it has "stepped up its supervision of the program," notably through the introduction of the Ariane Supply Chain Excellence Program begun in 2009.

Astrium Space Transportation Chief Executive Alain Charmeau said in an Oct. 18 statement that ESA government approval of the program called Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution, featuring a new upper stage, is needed "to reinforce the overall effectiveness and the robustness of the industrial chain ... [and] adopt collective measures that reflect our firm commitment to reducing overall costs."

ESA governments have postponed a conference to set budget and program strategy, meaning the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution project is unlikely to enter into force — if it is approved — until 2013. The ESA conference of its 18 member governments had initially been scheduled for late 2010, then 2011, and now is unlikely before the second half of 2012, government officials said.

Astrium officials have said the Les Mureaux design bureau is badly in need of a new project now that the French M-51 ballistic missile and Europe's space station components, notably the Automated Transfer Vehicle cargo freighter, have moved to full production phase. A new Ariane 5 upper stage would help keep engineers busy while waiting for the Ariane 5 successor. ESA's launcher director, Antonio Fabrizi, has said the new upper stage, if approved, must be certain to result in no increase in Ariane 5 operating costs.

An Astrium spokesman on Oct. 21 said no company officials would be made available to elaborate on the conclusions of the Ariane 5 audit, or on specific proposals for the new Ariane 5 upper stage, whose cost has been estimated at about 2 billion euros ($2.8 billion).

The French government, Ariane's biggest contributor, has not clearly indicated its support for the new upper stage, preferring to focus a public bond issue on beginning work on an Ariane 6 rocket that would, in some ways, resemble Russia's current Proton rocket.

The Ariane 6, according to preliminary French studies, would be designed to carry one large telecommunications satellite at a time into geostationary orbit. The vehicle could be developed in different variants to carry lighter telecommunications satellites as well, possibly replacing the European version of Russia's Soyuz, whose first launch from Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport is scheduled for the first half of 2011.

The German government, whose national industry stands to gain if the Ariane 5 is modified rather than replaced, has publicly expressed its reluctance to finance an Ariane 5 successor at this time.

Government and industry officials say it is still not clear whether the Ariane 5 upgrade would result in a dramatic performance increase over the current Ariane 5 ECA design, or whether there is any commercial market demand for it.

Meanwhile, the imminent introduction of the Soyuz rocket into Europe's launcher stable will complicate the Ariane 5 program even as it broadens Arianespace's product portfolio.

Launched from the equatorial Guiana Space Center in French Guiana, the Soyuz can place a 3,200-kilogram satellite into geostationary transfer orbit. These relatively light telecommunications satellites are now used to fill the manifest of larger satellites — 5,000 kilograms and more — that are Arianespace's bread-and-butter customers. Launching two satellites at a time is essential to maintain the Ariane 5 system's financial viability.

The market response to the European Soyuz from European governments and other customers has been greater than expected, Le Gall said.

"We have 16 Ariane 5 rockets already booked," he said. "That's 32 satellites. But 14 of these satellites have been contracted for either a Soyuz or an Ariane 5. In addition to these, we have a manifest of 17 dedicated Soyuz launches from French Guiana. I don't think anyone anticipated such a high demand for Soyuz, particularly for government satellites."

ЦитироватьКорпорации "Астриум" и "Эр ликид" создают совместное предприятия с целью разработки оборудования новой ракеты-носителя "Ариан 5МЕ"
:: 02.11.2010

Французские корпорации "Астриум" и "Эр ликид" создают совместное предприятие с целью разработки оборудования для новой ракеты-носителя "Ариан 5МЕ". Об этом сообщает сегодня газета французских деловых кругов "Фигаро-экономи".
Решение о создании нового тяжелого носителя было принято Европейским космическим агентством /ЕКА/ еще два года назад. Теперь работа над модифицированным вариантом нынешней ракеты "Ариан-5" входят в активную фазу.
"Астриум" является головным подрядчиком в работах по выпуску ракет серии "Ариан-5". "Эр ликид" – крупнейшая французская компания и мировой лидер отрасли по производству газов промышленного назначения и оборудования для них.
Заключаемая в настоящее время договоренность касается разработки и выпуска топливного резервуара для криогенной системы двигателей верхней ступени ракеты "Ариан 5МЕ". Изготовленный из специального сплава бак предназначен для топлива на основе сжиженных кислорода и водорода. Его температура должна поддерживаться на уровне в минус 200 градусов Цельсия в течение нескольких предполетных часов и во время всего полета.
"Данное соглашение позволяет проекту выйти на очень важный этап и соблюсти ранее намеченные сроки его осуществления", – подчеркнул Ален Шармо, заведующий отделом космических носителей "Астриум". Он сообщил, что корпорация "Сафран" уже провела первые испытания ракетного двигателя "Винси", предназначенного для "Ариан 5МЕ".
Штаб-квартира совместного предприятия разместится в Бремене /Германия/ рядом с одним из предприятий "Астриума".
Первый запуск новой ракеты, снабженной более мощным двигателем, чем предыдущая тяжелая версия "Ариан-5", запланирован на 2016 год. Грузоподъемность носителя в результате его модернизации будет повышена на 20 проц – до 12 тонн.

http://ru.euronews.net/newswires/558447-newswire/

ЦитироватьFri, 23 September, 2011
Arianespace Faces Multiyear Struggle Stacking Heavier Payloads on Ariane 5
By Peter B. de Selding

PARIS — Europe's heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket will be unable to launch any commercial missions for the next six months because of worsening payload compatibility issues that Ariane 5 designers hope to solve with the vehicle's planned upgrade.

But that modification, called Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (ME), will not make its first flight before 2016 at the earliest and will not be in regular service before 2018 — and then only if European governments approve the program's remaining development budget, estimated at about 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion).

Following an agreement between France and Germany on Ariane 5 ME, the 19-nation European Space Agency (ESA) is expected to approve the program during a conference in late 2012.

For the next seven years then, Europe's Arianespace commercial launch consortium will have to cope with the gradually increasing weight of the average telecommunications satellite by matching payloads as best it can while staying within Ariane 5's current limits.

Sometimes it cannot, as is the case now. The Sept. 21 launch of an Ariane 5 rocket carrying the vehicle's customary two telecommunications satellites will be the vehicle's last in 2011. An annual mission count of just five launches will make it difficult for Evry, France-based Arianespace to turn a profit. The company has posted small losses in each of the past two years despite the continued reliability of Ariane 5, whose Sept. 21 launch was its 46th consecutive success.

The Ariane 5 vehicle's business model depends on carrying two commercial customers at a time into geostationary transfer orbit. The model was developed for the previous Ariane 4 vehicle and perfected in the 1990s.

Ariane's main competitors, then and now, focus on delivering one heavy satellite into orbit per launch. Rare are the commercial satellites that are so large they cannot fit onto the International Launch Services Russian-built Proton rocket, operated fr om Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan; or the Sea Launch vehicle, operated from the Pacific Ocean by a Russian-based consortium.

The Ariane 5 rocket's record for satellite weight was set in April, when the rocket lifted two satellites weighing a combined 8,956 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit. The structure used to keep the satellites stable and separated during the ride through the atmosphere, plus other adaptors, put the entire weight carried into orbit at 10,050 kilograms.

In the past several years, heavy commercial telecommunications satellites have grown heavier. Many weigh 6,000 kilograms today. Even the lighter satellites have put on weight, with many reaching 3,000 kilograms once filled with fuel and ready for launch.

While Ariane 5 prime contractor Astrium Space Transportation and its subcontractors continue to make strides with incremental improvements in the vehicle's performance, it is typically a matter of several kilograms here and there, no more.

Keeping just beneath the current lim it of a combined 9,000 kilograms for two satellites involves occasionally sophisticated planning, months in advance, when satellite launches are booked. Some customers are in more of a hurry than others. What if one is late? The latest satellite operator to find that out is Sky Perfect JSat Corp. of Tokyo, a big customer for Arianespace. The company's JCSat-13 satellite, which when ordered from Lockheed Martin Space Systems in 2009 was aiming for a flight in 2013, is ready for a launch now.

Sky Perfect JSat announced that it would fly on an Ariane 5 rocket in late 2011. The satellite is expected to weigh about 4,500 kilograms at launch — a midrange satellite for which Arianespace needed to find a co-passenger of equivalent weight or less.

Several potential candidates came and went, either because their owners decided on other vehicles or because the satellites would not be ready in time.

On Aug. 3, Sky Perfect JSat announced that its 2011 launch was scrapped, and that JCSat-13 would not be launched by Arianespace before April "due to the launch service provider's reasons."

The launch schedule problem has been exacerbated by the fact that ESA's ATV-3 unmanned space station cargo carrier had previously booked a late-February or early-March flight aboard an Ariane 5. Arianespace has ruffled European government feathers in the past by appearing to move ESA missions around to favor commercial customers, and there was no question of doing that this time around.

The current ATV-3 launch dates are Feb. 29 or March 7.

It is still unclear whether the arrival of Russia's medium-lift Soyuz rocket at Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport will affect Ariane 5's business. While intended mainly for European government satellites, the Soyuz variant to be used next-door to Ariane 5 is able to launch a 3,000-kilogram telecommunications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit and could nibble at the edges of the Ariane 5 market.

At the Space Access conference here Sept. 21-23 organized by Astech Paris Region, officials from ESA, Astrium Space Transportation and the French space agency, CNES, outlined the status of the Ariane 5 ME program.

The current performance target, they said, is 11,300 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit. Subtracting the adaptors and the Sylda structure to separate the satellites means two satellites weighing a combined 10,500 kilograms could be launched by the Ariane 5 ME vehicle now planned for 2018. Program managers said they expect the vehicle's performance to rise to 10,700 kilograms.

ESA, CNES and Astrium designers appear to have reached a consensus that the successor to Ariane 5 will be a modular rocket designed to carry satellites weighing between 3,000 and 8,000 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit — one at a time.

Цитироватьhttp://www.spacenews.com/launch/110923-struggle-stacking-payloads-ariane5.html

ЦитироватьFri, 23 September, 2011
Arianespace Faces Multiyear Struggle Stacking Heavier Payloads on Ariane 5[/size]
By Peter B. de Selding

    PARIS — Europe's heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket will be unable to launch any commercial missions for the next six months because of worsening payload compatibility issues that Ariane 5 designers hope to solve with the vehicle's planned upgrade.

    But that modification, called Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (ME), will not make its first flight before 2016 at the earliest and will not be in regular service before 2018 — and then only if European governments approve the program's remaining development budget, estimated at about 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion).

    Following an agreement between France and Germany on Ariane 5 ME, the 19-nation European Space Agency (ESA) is expected to approve the program during a conference in late 2012.

    For the next seven years then, Europe's Arianespace commercial launch consortium will have to cope with the gradually increasing weight of the average telecommunications satellite by matching payloads as best it can while staying within Ariane 5's current limits.

    Sometimes it cannot, as is the case now. The Sept. 21 launch of an Ariane 5 rocket carrying the vehicle's customary two telecommunications satellites will be the vehicle's last in 2011. An annual mission count of just five launches will make it difficult for Evry, France-based Arianespace to turn a profit. The company has posted small losses in each of the past two years despite the continued reliability of Ariane 5, whose Sept. 21 launch was its 46th consecutive success.

    The Ariane 5 vehicle's business model depends on carrying two commercial customers at a time into geostationary transfer orbit. The model was developed for the previous Ariane 4 vehicle and perfected in the 1990s.

    Ariane's main competitors, then and now, focus on delivering one heavy satellite into orbit per launch. Rare are the commercial satellites that are so large they cannot fit onto the International Launch Services Russian-built Proton rocket, operated from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan; or the Sea Launch vehicle, operated from the Pacific Ocean by a Russian-based consortium.

    The Ariane 5 rocket's record for satellite weight was set in April, when the rocket lifted two satellites weighing a combined 8,956 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit. The structure used to keep the satellites stable and separated during the ride through the atmosphere, plus other adaptors, put the entire weight carried into orbit at 10,050 kilograms.

    In the past several years, heavy commercial telecommunications satellites have grown heavier. Many weigh 6,000 kilograms today. Even the lighter satellites have put on weight, with many reaching 3,000 kilograms once filled with fuel and ready for launch.

    While Ariane 5 prime contractor Astrium Space Transportation and its subcontractors continue to make strides with incremental improvements in the vehicle's performance, it is typically a matter of several kilograms here and there, no more.

    Keeping just beneath the current limit of a combined 9,000 kilograms for two satellites involves occasionally sophisticated planning, months in advance, when satellite launches are booked. Some customers are in more of a hurry than others. What if one is late? The latest satellite operator to find that out is Sky Perfect JSat Corp. of Tokyo, a big customer for Arianespace. The company's JCSat-13 satellite, which when ordered from Lockheed Martin Space Systems in 2009 was aiming for a flight in 2013, is ready for a launch now.

    Sky Perfect JSat announced that it would fly on an Ariane 5 rocket in late 2011. The satellite is expected to weigh about 4,500 kilograms at launch — a midrange satellite for which Arianespace needed to find a co-passenger of equivalent weight or less.

    Several potential candidates came and went, either because their owners decided on other vehicles or because the satellites would not be ready in time.

    On Aug. 3, Sky Perfect JSat announced that its 2011 launch was scrapped, and that JCSat-13 would not be launched by Arianespace before April "due to the launch service provider's reasons."

    The launch schedule problem has been exacerbated by the fact that ESA's ATV-3 unmanned space station cargo carrier had previously booked a late-February or early-March flight aboard an Ariane 5. Arianespace has ruffled European government feathers in the past by appearing to move ESA missions around to favor commercial customers, and there was no question of doing that this time around.

    The current ATV-3 launch dates are Feb. 29 or March 7.

    It is still unclear whether the arrival of Russia's medium-lift Soyuz rocket at Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport will affect Ariane 5's business. While intended mainly for European government satellites, the Soyuz variant to be used next-door to Ariane 5 is able to launch a 3,000-kilogram telecommunications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit and could nibble at the edges of the Ariane 5 market.

    At the Space Access conference here Sept. 21-23 organized by Astech Paris Region, officials from ESA, Astrium Space Transportation and the French space agency, CNES, outlined the status of the Ariane 5 ME program.

    The current performance target, they said, is 11,300 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit. Subtracting the adaptors and the Sylda structure to separate the satellites means two satellites weighing a combined 10,500 kilograms could be launched by the Ariane 5 ME vehicle now planned for 2018. Program managers said they expect the vehicle's performance to rise to 10,700 kilograms.

    ESA, CNES and Astrium designers appear to have reached a consensus that the successor to Ariane 5 will be a modular rocket designed to carry satellites weighing between 3,000 and 8,000 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit — one at a time.[/size]

ЦитироватьА диаметр в 5,45 м Вас не смущает?

ЦитироватьОт Ариан-4 сто процентов ничего не осталось.

ЦитироватьFri, 28 October, 2011
Germany Reaffirms Commitment to $2B Ariane 5 Upgrade
By Peter B. de Selding

PARIS — The head of the German space agency said Oct. 28 Germany remains committed to financing a $2 billion upgrade to Europe's Ariane 5 rocket instead of proceeding directly to a new launcher design when European governments meet in late 2012 to set midterm space policy.

Johann-Dietrich Woerner, chairman of the German Aerospace Center, DLR, also expressed concern that the European Commission, which on Nov. 10 is scheduled to host a global space exploration conference, is dispersing its energies at a time when it has trouble financing higher priorities such as satellite navigation and Earth observation.

Woerner said the Third International Conference on Space Exploration, scheduled to be held in Lucca, Italy, is a worthy idea but may be premature.

"If I have understood things correctly, the European Commission has five priorities in space policy," he said in an interview. "They are, in order, the Galileo navigation project; GMES [Global Monitoring for Environment and Security]; the international space station; launch vehicles; and exploration. We need decisions on the first two priorities before we look at the fifth."

Europe's Galileo satellite navigation project, whose first two operational satellites were launched Oct. 21, is lacking more than 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in financing needed to build and launch the full 30-satellite constellation. The European Commission hopes to secure the funding, as well as financing for Galileo's operations and maintenance, in its next seven-year budget starting in 2014.

That budget also was supposed to finance GMES. But last summer the commission, as part of a budget-cutting exercise, removed GMES fr om the seven-year budget proposal.

Woerner said Germany is actively pushing the commission to restore GMES to what the commission calls its Multi-annual Financial Framework.

The 19 member governments of the European Space Agency (ESA) are scheduled to meet in late 2012 to set their own multiyear budget and spending priorities. Germany and France had agreed that a new restartable upper stage for Ariane 5, using the Vinci engine now in development, would be a top priority. Completing the stage is expected to cost about 1.5 billion euros.

The so-called Ariane 5 Mid-life Evolution (Ariane 5 ME) vehicle, which would increase Ariane 5's payload-carrying performance to 10,500 kilograms from today's 9,300 to 9,500 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit, would debut in 2018.

France in the meantime has invested 250 million euros in a public bond to finance early development work on a successor to the Ariane 5 vehicle, which would be modular in design and lift satellites weighing 3,000 to 8,000 kilograms, one at a time, into the same geostationary transfer orbit. Geostationary transfer orbit is the drop-off point for satellites ultimately bound for geostationary orbit, wh ere most telecommunications satellites operate.

French Research Minister Laurent Wauquiez, in an Oct. 18 interview in the French financial daily La Tribune, said it will not be before 2012 that France determines whether Ariane 5 ME or an Ariane 5 successor should be given priority.

"Decisions will be made in 2012," Wauquiez said. "For France, the selection will be based on whether Ariane 5 ME and/or Ariane 6 — we need to keep the options open — correspond to the demands of government and commercial customers. At this point it is too early to determine. We are waiting for detailed evaluations of the different options."

Woerner said an agreement struck in 2010 between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel set Ariane 5 ME as the priority for the 2012 ESA conference. He said he had no reason to think that priority had changed despite the mounting budget pressures on European governments.

"I don't believe we will stop Ariane 5 ME development and for me this is not an either/or choice," Woerner said. "The development being done for Ariane 5 ME will be of great value to the post-Ariane 5 vehicle. We should start work on what we agreed on, and I trust the decision made by Mr. Sarkozy and Madame Merkel."

German industry will have a substantial share of the work on the Ariane 5 ME program. Its role in a post-Ariane 5 vehicle almost certainly will be considerable as well, but at this point remains unknown.

A report on French and European space policy options to 2030 urged Europe to develop vehicles that were thoroughly European, and to oblige European governments to use these rockets, and no others, for their government satellites. European governments have financed the introduction of Russia's Soyuz rocket to Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport, and starting in 2012 the Italian-led Vega rocket will begin operations with a Ukrainian upper stage.

The report, written for French Prime Minister Francois Fillon by the Center for Strategic Analysis (CEA) and titled "A Space Ambition for Europe," urges European governments to reduce their dependence on satellite and rocket electronics components made in the United States and, to a lesser extent, Japan.

"Today, 75 percent of the electronics components on a satellite or launcher are of American origin," the CEA report says, specifically mentioning radiation-hardened, high-speed digital signal processors and certain composite materials.

Given the unpredictability of U.S. technology export regulations, the report says, an existing task force set up by ESA, the European Commission and the European Defense Agency to evaluate technology autonomy in the space sector should be empowered to make decisions on reducing dependence on critical technologies.

ЦитироватьDLR: Upgrade Ariane 5 Before Making Successor

Oct 31, 2011

By Amy Svitak

Paris – German aerospace center DLR expects France to uphold the two countries' commitment to upgrade Europe's current Ariane 5 launch vehicle before starting development of a successor, despite recent statements by a top French official that cast doubt on available funding for both.

Johann-Dietrich Woerner, DLR's executive board chairman, said in an Oct. 28 interview that Germany trusts a February 2010 agreement between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to fund the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (ME) — which is expected to be adopted in late 2012 — when the European Space Agency's ministerial council meets to determine the agency's multiyear budget.

Early design work for the midlife upgrade began in 2008, including development of a restartable cryogenic upper stage that would boost the rocket's performance and enable simultaneous launches of multiple satellites into different orbits. However, in an Oct. 18 interview with La Tribune, French Research Minister Laurent Wauquiez said it is unclear whether there is enough funding in the forthcoming budget for both the midlife upgrade and a post-Ariane 5 rocket development.

France, which is expected to finance a major share of a post-Ariane 5 rocket, is already investing €250 million ($350 million) as part of a government bond issue to begin definition of the Ariane 6, a modular launcher capable of lifting satellites weighing between 3,000 and 8,000 kg (6,600 and 17,600 lb.) that could be operational around 2025. In contrast, the Ariane 5 ME is estimated to cost €1.5 billion and would not be in service before 2019.

ЦитироватьThu, 8 December, 2011
France Undecided on Ariane 5 Investment Question
By Peter B. de Selding

PARIS — France is undecided about whether European Space Agency (ESA) governments should invest 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in an upgraded Ariane 5 rocket when they meet in 11 months or put this investment into an Ariane 5 successor vehicle instead, a senior French space agency official said Dec. 6.

The comments by Thierry Duquesne, deputy director for strategy and programs at the French space agency, CNES, echo statements made in October by French Research Minister Laurent Wauquiez.

They suggest that despite continued German government pressure that the Ariane 5 upgrade be supported, French officials are not certain that at a time of enormous pressure on public budgets, the upgrade — called the Ariane 5 Mid-life Evolution, or Ariane 5 ME — is the way to go.

"This remains an open question," Duquesne said here during a conference on European space policy options organized by Euroconsult. "Maintaining [Europe's] autonomous access to space is not just a matter of development. It's a question of what developments can be sustained."

The Ariane 5 ME project was given initial funding in 2008 to complete development by Snecma Moteurs of France of the Vinci restartable engine, which when integrated into a new Ariane 5 upper stage will permit the rocket to increase its payload-carrying capacity by about 20 percent for no extra cost when measured in price per kilogram.

Astrium Space Transportation, which has been pushing for the program's full approval at the planned late-2012 conference of ESA space ministers, on Dec. 1 issued an unusual public statement on the project, saying it has completed the preliminary design review and demonstrated its performance.

"The added value generated by Astrium's unique role as end-to-end prime contractor for Ariane 5 since 2003 will allow the company to drive down costs," the statement said.

The Ariane 5 ME's main goal is to permit Ariane 5 to broaden its market appeal by offering to place different satellites into different orbits in a single launch by virtue of the restartable Vinci engine. The Ariane 5 ME rocket, Astrium has said, will be no more expensive to build or operate than the current Ariane 5 ECA vehicle, but will be able to carry 20 percent more payload.

Duquesne did not dispute these claims, but said France and other European governments are looking not only at the vehicle's performance but at the entire end-to-end cost of operating and maintaining Ariane 5.

The Arianespace commercial launch consortium of Evry, France, has been forced to stop and restart several launch campaigns in the past two years because of hiccups not on the Ariane 5 rocket, but in the complex network of electrical and fluid lines that are part of the Ariane 5 launch system.

A panel of French government experts convened by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon concluded that the next-generation Ariane rocket should be a modular vehicle designed to carry one satellite at a time, weighing between 3,000 and 8,000 kilograms, into the geostationary orbit used by most telecommunications satellites.

In a Nov. 29 speech celebrating CNES's 50th anniversary, Fillon — who is a former French space minister — said the next-generation rocket should be in service by 2025. A French government bond issue designed to stimulate the economy has reserved about 250 million euros for preliminary design work on the vehicle. Fillon did not mention Ariane 5 ME.

"Let's be clear," Fillon said. "The economic model that permitted Europe to gain its independence in space is now destabilized by the crisis and by the necessity of controlling public budgets for a prolonged period."

Duquesne said the decision on whether to pursue Ariane 5 ME or proceed directly to work on the next-generation vehicle will depend in part on how much investment other ESA governments are willing to make in the launcher sector when they meet in late 2012.

The ESA ministerial meeting, tentatively set for November, is likely to debate an ongoing financial support package for Arianespace, whose profitability in 2010 and 2011 has been compromised in part because of the cost of operating the Ariane 5 launch installation despite the rocket's success. The vehicle has conducted 46 consecutive successful launches.

Germany has been among the most vocal European governments in insisting that Ariane 5 costs be aligned with the vehicle's revenue, which means Arianespace's business model is highly dependent on prevailing global commercial launch prices.

Rolf Densing, director of space programs at Germany's space agency, DLR, expressed frustration that despite nearly two years of work by government and industry officials looking for ways to cut Ariane 5's overall costs, few savings have been found.

"We negotiated with our monopolistic [rocket] industry to make space more affordable," Densing said during the Dec. 6 conference. "But despite all this work we have only been able to find 1 or 2 percent in savings."

Densing nonetheless reiterated long-standing German government policy that the Ariane 5 ME program, which was endorsed in 2010 by the French and German heads of state at a bilateral summit, be approved in 2012. This endorsement, he said, "in my mind makes it obvious" that Ariane 5 ME should be fully adopted by ESA governments.

Densing said he shares the concerns of those who would like to proceed with a wholesale revamping of the Ariane program.

"I understand the frustration people have with the current Ariane system, because it is very expensive," Densing said. "We want to launch satellites. We are not here to launch launchers. But the ME project's purpose is to make launches more affordable."

ЦитироватьWed, 14 December, 2011
DLR Chief Sees Battles Ahead on Station, Ariane
By Peter B. de Selding

In a press briefing at Astrium Space Transportation here during a space station contract signing, and in a subsequent interview, Woerner said Germany is not backing off its insistence that an upgrade of the current Ariane 5 take priority over work on a successor rocket.

"No, no and no," Woerner said when asked if Germany's position on the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (Ariane 5-ME) program had changed in favor of moving directly to a new-generation rocket. "We have not changed our view at all. We are still very much in favor of Ariane 5-ME."

"The crisis of the euro will not make it easy, as there will be debates over Ariane 6, over Vega — this is always the case." Vega is a small-satellite launch vehicle led by Italy that is scheduled to make its inaugural flight in early 2012.

Ariane 6 is the name tentatively given in France to a next-generation European rocket. French government officials are still debating whether, given the sovereign-debt crisis in Europe, governments will not have to choose between the Ariane 5-ME project and a redesigned rocket that would be less expensive to operate.

ESA governments are scheduled to meet in November 2012 to debate a multiyear program and budget.

The Ariane 5-ME upgrade features a new, restartable upper stage that would provide a 20 percent increase in the Ariane 5's payload-carrying capacity to geostationary transfer orbit, the drop off point for most telecommunications satellites. This is the market that the current Ariane 5 system depends on to maintain financial equilibrium while offering a reliable rocket for European government payloads.

The design assumption for Ariane 5-ME is that the vehicle could be built for the same price as today's Ariane 5 ECA rocket.

ESA in 2010 hired an outside auditor to review the current Ariane 5 system to look for ways to save money. Its principal conclusion was that very few savings were possible without scrapping the forced geographic distribution of industrial contracts that preserves the political and financial support needed for the Ariane system.

Woerner conceded the point, but said there remain avenues to squeeze savings from the current Ariane 5 system. "We will put pressure on Arianespace to reduce its prices as we did in the past," he said, referring to the commercial consortium that operates Europe's launchers. "We are eager for Ariane 5-ME because it will help reduce costs and improve performance."

ЦитироватьAriane 5 Upgrade Could End Subsidies
Jan 23, 2012

By Amy Svitak

PARIS — European Space Agency subsidies intended to offset high fixed costs incurred by the Arianespace commercial launch consortium could be unnecessary by decade's end if ESA members agree to invest a little over €1 billion ($1.3 billion) to upgrade the Ariane 5 rocket, according to Astrium Chief Executive Francois Auque.

The 19-nation agency is currently providing about €120 million in annual price supports to the European launch services company, which manages missions of the Astrium-built Ariane 5 heavy-lift launch vehicle at Europe's Guiana Space Center in Kourou.

In recent years Evry, France-based Arianespace has struggled to break even, though additional product offerings in 2011 and 2012, including Europeanized Soyuz rockets and the new Italian Vega launcher, are expected to offset the company's high fixed costs (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 6).

The uptick in launch tempo alone is not likely to alleviate the company's reliance on continued ESA price supports. But Auque says the need for that particular line of ESA financing could be eliminated by increased lift capacity planned for the Ariane 5 Mid-life Evolution (ME), which would add 20% to the payload capacity of the rocket at no additional cost.

For now, ESA has agreed to maintain a low level of industrial activity for the Ariane 5 ME until the space agency's council meets at the ministerial level in November to hash out a multiyear spending plan.

"That said, it is true that for the ministerial this year we are thinking about what might be best for the next decade when it comes to launchers, and we have begun discussions on that subject," ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain says, adding that despite the decision to continue work on the mid-life upgrade, ESA is consulting the core customer base that will rely on the next generation of European rockets to loft commercial satellites in the coming decade.

"They will tell me what they need," he says. "But I don't want to stop Ariane 5 ME until I know what the results are going to be."

In the meantime, France is pressing for development of a successor rocket, having already anted-up close to €250 million in public bond money for early definition and design studies of a next-generation launch vehicle (NGL).

"We could do both the Ariane 5 ME and the [NGL]," says Yannick d'Escatha, head of the French space agency CNES. "But we would have to spend twice the money."

ЦитироватьThu, 9 February, 2012
France, Germany To Establish Working Group To Resolve Ariane 5 Differences

By Peter B. de Selding

PARIS — France and Germany have agreed to establish two working groups to resolve their differences over the future of the Ariane 5 rocket and Europe's role in the international space station.

Both groups are scheduled to reach their conclusions by June 30, in time to inform French and German positions before a November conference of ministers from the 19-nation European Space Agency (ESA). The conference, held every three or four years, sets Europe's medium-term space budget and policy direction.

A conflict between France and Germany, ESA's two biggest contributors, over core ESA programs would threaten to destabilize a conference that already is faced with the stress of Europe's government debt crisis.

Following a Feb. 6 meeting in Paris of the two governments' council of ministers, the French and German ministers responsible for space policy issued a statement that reflects the two sides' disagreements.

The document is notable for the fact that France appears to be using historically German arguments — that the heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket's costs need to come down — to counter Germany's backing of an Ariane 5 upgrade. France would prefer to skip the upgrade and to start work immediately on an Ariane 5 successor.

"Given the current situation, it is necessary to establish a coherent, stable and affordable framework for public-sector support for the current launch vehicles developed by ESA to improve their competitiveness," the document says.

"This support must be reduced in parallel with a change in governance, and a greater transparency, in the activities of all the enterprises involved in the operations of European launchers. The goal is to reduce their costs and increase the amount of risk assumed by industry."

Johann-Dietrich Woerner, chairman of the German Aerospace Center, DLR, acknowledged the irony of the fact that France, and not Germany, is now leading the critique of the operating costs of Ariane 5.

"The emphasis on cost reduction was actually the French mark-up of the document," Woerner said in a Feb. 8 interview. He said Germany remains open-minded about the French argument that the Ariane 5 Mid-life Extension (Ariane 5 ME) project will not resolve the current cost issues surrounding Ariane 5.

"As a scientist I always try to be open-minded," Woerner said. "The launcher itself is not the end product, and we do not develop launchers to support a launcher industry. We want autonomous access to space in Europe to launch our payloads. The question is, what launcher is best suited to that?"

In an attempt to position Ariane 5 ME as a cost-saving project, Ariane 5 prime contractor Astrium has said the upgrade — which features a restartable upper stage engine and a 20 percent boost in Ariane 5 performance — could allow ESA to eliminate the Ariane 5 price supports.

ESA governments now pay about 120 million euros ($158 million) per year to the Arianespace launch consortium of Evry, France, to offset fixed costs in Ariane 5 production and permit Arianespace to avoid financial losses.

Woerner said he did not give much credence to these promises so long as they are not accompanied by industry commitments to assume the costs on its own.

Early French designs of an Ariane 5 successor rocket show a vehicle of modular design that could place telecommunications satellites weighing between 3,000 and 8,000 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit, the destination of most commercial spacecraft.

The vehicle would replace both the heavy-lift Ariane 5 and the medium-lift Russian Soyuz rocket, which now operates alongside Ariane 5 at Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport in South America.

The Ariane 5 successor, now called the Next-Generation Launcher (NGL), would lift satellites one at a time and be designed from the start to be much less dependent on the commercial satellite market to meet its costs, and much less costly to operate.

ЦитироватьQuestion: When would you like to see an Ariane 5 replacement?

Le Gall: I think that whatever the European governments decide, either to upgrade the Ariane 5 or to develop fr om scratch a new launch vehicle, it will seven to eight years. That means about 2020.

Question: That is assuming there is a decision this year.

Le Gall: Right, at the end of this year there is a ministerial meeting of the ESA Council. If there is a decision, it will be for a first flight in 2020, 2018, or 2019.

Question: Would it be a specific replacement or a supplement to Ariane 5?

Le Gall: In both cases, it will be the same.

Question: Would you be looking for something that has the same performance as Ariane 5?

Le Gall: No, in fact, if there is an upgrade of Ariane 5, it will be with extra capacity, probably with 1.5 or 2 extra tonnes. If it is an Ariane 6, people speak about a launcher which will be around 6 tonnes. I think we still have to wait a few months because there are different points to be considered before choosing this new launch vehicle, and that is the discussion in Europe.

Question: What kind of cost would you estimate is needed to develop a new rocket, and what specific performance metrics would you want to improve?

Le Gall: I've heard a cost of about a few billion euros. As for the performance, it's about 6-to-6.5 tonnes.

Question: Compared to what for a single launch?

Le Gall: Ariane 5 today does not perform single launch, just dual-launch. If there is an option to upgrade Ariane 5, it will be by a few tonnes. If there is an option to develop a new launch vehicle, it will be a launch vehicle in the range of 6 tonnes.

Question: For single or dual launches?

Le Gall: For single launches.

Question: Would you replace the Ariane 5 or would you continue to use that?

Le Gall: I don't know. It's too long-term.

Question: Could you share your thoughts on some of the more recent entrants to the launch vehicle family, particularly with the new Angara comes online or when the new Long March family comes out, or the Indian launchers?

Le Gall: You see, all these people have many projects. But in this business, projects are existing when you start to launch. Let us wait for the first launch. When I arrived in this business 10 years ago, we already spoke about the first flight of Angara. That was 10 years ago. We didn't see any flights. And the next Long March? We'll see. But today, the Long March is mostly out of the market due to the ITAR regulations.

Question: Will that change anytime soon?

Le Gall: It doesn't seem to be that will be a trend.

Question: If the ESA Council decides on the development of a new launcher, which would preclude you from doing dual-launches in the distant future, what would that do to your competitiveness?

Le Gall: I'm not comfortable speaking about Ariane 6 too much yet. It is not yet the business of Arianespace. It is now the business of the European Space Agency, and there are changes every week because we are in a process wh ere people think and try to adapt. We will rendezvous at the end of the year at the ministerial conference, and a decision should be taken then. Today, we see the two options, and upgrade of Ariane 5 or a new launch vehicle. Once you decide on those, you can say much more.[/quote
]

ЦитироватьSince February, ESA's two largest financial contributors have been debating the merits of pressing ahead with an upgrade to the Ariane 5 – known as the Ariane 5 ME – or getting started right away on the rocket's successor, a next-generation launcher that many in Europe have precipitously dubbed Ariane 6.

An initial tranche of funding for the Ariane 5 ME, favored by Germany, was approved at ESA's 2008 budget ministerial. Estimated to cost a total of €1.5 billion, the upgrade would equip the Ariane 5 with the Vinci restartable cryogenic upper stage engine that would keep prime contractor EADS-Astrium's German engineering teams busy until Europe decides on a successor.

"Ariane 5 ME will be a very competitive product to be put on the market in 2016 or 2017," Astrium Space Transportation CEO Alain Charmeau says, adding that the upgrade would add a 20 percent performance boost to the Ariane 5 for the same price of the rocket as it exists today.

"It could be good for us to start working on technologies for Ariane 6 in parallel with Ariane 5 ME, and it could very well lead to a decision for Ariane 6 in 2015," when ESA is expected once again to meet at the ministerial level to set its multiyear spending plan, Charmeau says.

France, on the other hand, is ready to ditch the ME, in which ESA member states have already invested several hundred million euros, and get going on Ariane 6, a modular rocket designed to be less reliant on the commercial market than the heavy-lift Ariane 5 or its mid-life upgrade.

Emmanuel Terrasse, space policy adviser to French Research Minister Laurent Wauquiez, says France has already funded studies of an Ariane 6 design in preparation for the November ministerial meeting and that the decision to continue with the Ariane 5 ME or to initiate development of a new launcher cannot be delayed.

"The key point is really the content and the type of launcher we want to have," Terrasse says. "This decision cannot wait, it needs to be taken now, given the development times. It cannot be postponed until 2015."

Charmeau says the forthcoming decision doesn't have to pit Ariane 5 ME against a next-generation launcher. But with Europe still grappling with its sovereign-debt crisis, how can it afford to do both?

"We will be very glad if we can prepare Ariane 6 thanks to technology demonstrators and some work to be done on the concept of Ariane 6 and delivering a lower-cost launcher than today, which will require some years before we can really start the development," Charmeau says. "We are willing to do Ariane 6 but we are realistic that to develop such a product, a completely new launcher, it will take something like 15 years to be in a reliable commercial position."

In the meantime, ESA's Dordain is expected to seek proposals fr om industry next month for building a next-generation launcher that would bend the 19-nation agency's industrial participation rules and facilitate more competition among companies in an effort to lower development costs.

"I have a meeting with the launcher industry at the beginning of April and after that we shall issue the invitation to tender for getting proposals from industry on a next-generation launch vehicle based on requirements coming from a European customer base," Dordain said.

ESA's current approach to procurement relies on member states to ante up funding every three years or so for specific development programs, leaving ESA to build the project while guaranteeing a 90-percent return on investment for participating countries in the form of industrial work share.

Last year an outside audit of Ariane 5 manufacturers found that unless European governments agreed to bend ESA's geographic return rules, the agency would be hard pressed to find savings with a new rocket development.

Dordain believes the shift in acquisition approach would indeed lower the cost to develop a new launcher, a figure that France and Germany say is expected to fall somewh ere between €3-5 billion.

"I am doing this the other way around, asking for customer requirements and asking industry for proposals without geo-return constraints," he says, explaining that an ESA working group has spent the past several months asking key launch customers like SES and Eutelsat what they want in a next-generation launcher. "From the customers there is no commitment, but they have agreed to put their requirements on the table. Then we hold the competition with industry and after that we go to member states and ask for money according to the results."

Dordain says he hopes to have the industry proposals in hand by the time ESA government ministers meet in November. Although he does not expect the budget negotiations to lead to full-scale work on a next-gen launcher, he said "such a development can be made in different phases." At a minimum, he expects ESA ministers to make a decision on the first phase of a next-generation launcher.

"I wish to know by at least the end of the year the architecture of the next-generation launch vehicle and the industrial team," he says.

Dordain said if ESA ministers opt to initiate an Ariane 6 development in the forthcoming round of budget talks, it would not rule out continuing work on Ariane 5 ME. One option could be to continue work on the Ariane 5 ME's Vinci engine for use in the next-generation launcher while scrapping other elements of the mid-life evolution.

"For me the key point of the next-generation launch vehicle is to get a proposal from industry that responds to the requirements of European customers by the end of the year so we can make a decision and let's see what comes out of that," he says.

But while Dordain's cost-saving approach is sure to put pressure on existing suppliers to lower prices, tampering with ESA's current industrial return rules could alienate some of its key financial backers.

"If you change it so that development occurs in one location, it would be cheaper, but then it would not be European," says Johann-Dietrich Woerner, head of the German Aerospace Center DLR. "We still think a European solution is the right solution. We should put all arguments on the table, including costs, including perspectives, and then decide."

ЦитироватьWASHINGTON — The European Space Agency (ESA) is considering paying a multimillion-dollar repair bill for NASA's B-2 Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, so that the upper stage for the possible successor to Europe's Ariane 5 rocket can be tested there.

The B-2 Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility is part of Plum Brook Station, a campus about 80 kilometers west of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. ESA wants to use the facility to test the upper stage for its Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (ME) rocket, one of two options Europe is considering for its next satellite launcher. However, the B-2 building needs to have its steam ejection system fixed so it can simulate high-altitude conditions needed for the ESA test.

"We have to refurbish those," Jim Free, deputy director for the NASA Glenn Research Center, said of the steam ejectors. "That's where the majority of the upgrades, or the refurbishment of the facility comes in. It would be ESA paying for the upgrade, in addition to the test cost."

Free would not provide a specific figure, but he said the overhaul would cost several million dollars. Plum Brook's budget for 2012 is $11.2 million, and facility upkeep runs about $5 million a year, NASA spokesman Michael Braukus said.

Maintaining the upgrades paid for by ESA would not be a budgetary issue for NASA "because there is no anticipated customer beyond the ESA test," Braukus said.

A draft Space Act Agreement containing some of the terms and conditions of ESA's use of the Plum Brook facility "has been forwarded to ESA for review," Braukus told Space News April 3. Final terms and conditions are still under negotiation, but NASA expects European space officials to make a decision about the test this fall. NASA has completed development cost estimates for the Plum Brook upgrades and is scheduled to conduct a formal review April 11, he added. Those results will be forwarded to ESA.

Pal Hvistendahl, an ESA spokesman in Paris, confirmed the agency is interested in using Plum Brook's B-2 facility to test a fully integrated upper stage for the proposed Ariane 5-ME rocket, if the agency decides to go that route. But he also said that ESA's "present baseline foresees development of a new test bench" at a liquid rocket engine test site operated by the German Aerospace Center, DLR, in Lampoldshausen, Germany.

"The testing at Plum Brook B-2 might come as a complement or as an alternative to this baseline," Hvistendahl said.

ESA is mulling two options for its next workhorse launcher: the Ariane 5-ME, with a Vinci restartable upper stage engine and 20 percent more payload capacity; and Ariane 6, the name tentatively given to a next-generation rocket that would be designed to be commercially viable even if it launched one satellite at a time and garnered a smaller share of the commercial launch market than the current Ariane 5. Ariane 5 is designed to send two satellites to geostationary transfer orbit in a single launch. ESA officials are expected to pitch their preferred vehicle to representatives of the agency's 19 member-nations in November.

NASA bills the B-2 facility as the largest propulsion test chamber of its kind. ESA has utilized the facility before; it tested the fairing separation sequence for Ariane 5 there in 1996. NASA last used it for propulsion testing in 1998, when it tested the upper stage of Boeing's short-lived Delta 3 rocket.

According to NASA, a fully functioning B-2 Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility could accommodate engines that produce up to 1.8 meganewtons of thrust for tests lasting as long as 14 minutes.

But without a functioning steam ejector system, the facility cannot be used for hot-fire tests.

However, it can still be utilized as a vacuum chamber. For example, Free said NASA has been testing balloon payloads in the B-2 building.

The Plum Brook facility — and ESA's interest in using it — was brought into the spotlight last month during a U.S. Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee hearing on NASA's 2013 budget request. During the March 28 hearing, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) pressed NASA Administrator Charles Bolden about perceived delays in approving ESA's use of Plum Brook.

"The Europeans want to use Plum Brook, [and] I understand NASA headquarters seems to be holding this up," Brown told Bolden. "Why wouldn't we jump at this opportunity for the European Space Agency to want to use Plum Brook and its terrific facilities?"

Bolden pleaded ignorance.

"If in fact ESA is asking to test a vehicle at Plum Brook, I am not aware of what we're doing to disallow that," Bolden replied.

The NASA chief added that blocking a qualified customer from using NASA infrastructure "would be in opposition to my stated direction to everybody that we should find people to put in our facilities. I don't care where they come from."

Brown has been pressing NASA to put the ESA upper-stage test on a fast track since January, when he sent Bolden a letter about the European proposal.

Allison Preiss, a spokeswoman for Brown, said April 3 that NASA had not yet responded to the questions the senator asked Bolden at the hearing. However, she added "we expect to hear from the agency in a matter of weeks."

Braukus said that NASA had replied to Brown's earlier letter, telling the lawmaker that "we were in the process of defining the details of the agreement."

The Ariane 5 is operated by Arianespace of France. The launcher is built by Astrium, a subsidiary of Europe's EADS aerospace conglomerate.

ЦитироватьTue, 10 April, 2012
Astrium Awarded Contract for Continued Ariane 5 ME Development
By Peter B. de Selding

PARIS — Astrium Space Transportation will pursue development of an upgraded Ariane 5 launch vehicle under a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) valued at 112 million euros ($150 million), Astrium announced April 10.

The contract covers work on the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution, or Ariane 5 ME, program that ESA governments partially approved in late 2008. Ariane 5 ME would increase the vehicle's payload-carrying power to geostationary transfer orbit, the destination of most telecommunications satellites, by 20 percent, to 12,000 kilograms, for no increase in production cost when compared to today's Ariane 5.

The 19-nation ESA will take a second look at Ariane 5 ME in November during a meeting of its governments' space ministers. The agency is expected to decide then whether to pursue Ariane 5 ME to completion — essentially developing a new, restartable upper stage and testing it atop the current Ariane 5 — or take the relevant Ariane 5 ME work and use it to pursue an entirely new rocket to be in service around 2025.

ESA governments in 2008 agreed to spend 357 million euros on Ariane 5 ME, including the Vinci restartable engine under development by the Snecma division of Safran. Astrium and ESA signed an initial contract for Ariane 5 ME development in late 2009 valued at 150 million euros for what was intended to be two years of work. The assumption was that the ESA ministerial conference would occur in late 2011.

The conference has been postponed by a year and is now scheduled to occur in late November in Italy. The year-long delay has given proponents of a next-generation rocket time to make their case.

The current debate centers on whether ESA governments, many of them struggling with high debt levels, should spend 1 billion euros or more to complete Ariane 5 ME work, or invest in a new-generation rocket that would be less expensive to operate and less reliant on the commercial telecommunications market to maintain financial viability.

The French and German ministries responsible for space have created a joint working group to debate the issue and return a judgment by June 30. A firm consensus reached by ESA's two largest contributors on the way forward with Europe's showcase launcher program likely would be accepted by the other ESA delegations.

ЦитироватьApr 17, 2012

By Amy Svitak
Paris and Kourou, French Guiana

The future of Europe's launcher sector—and by implication the global commercial launch market—will be decided this year when European Space Agency (ESA) governments opt to either add more muscle to the current Ariane 5 rocket or supplant it with a completely new launcher designed to rely less on commercial business.

Even now, ESA's two largest financial contributors, France and Germany, are haggling over the merits of an upgrade to the Ariane 5—known as the midlife evolution or Ariane 5 ME—or getting started right away on a successor, next-generation launcher that many in France have dubbed Ariane 6.

The two sides are expected to hash out a common vision by June 30, ahead of a November summit at which ESA's ministerial council will set the agency's next multiyear spending plan.

During ESA's last round of budget negotiations in 2008, an initial tranche of €355 million ($464 million) was approved to begin work on the Ariane 5 ME, a development approved with Franco-German support. Another €1.5 billion would be needed starting next year to complete work on the upgrade, which would equip the Ariane 5 with the Vinci restartable cryogenic upper-stage engine and keep prime contractor EADS-Astrium's German engineering teams busy until Europe decides on a successor rocket.

"Ariane 5 ME will be a very competitive product to be put on the market in 2016 or 2017," Astrium Space Transportation CEO Alain Charmeau says, adding that the upgrade would equate to a 20% performance boost for the same price of an Ariane 5 launch today.

France, on the other hand, now appears ready to scrap the ME and start work on Ariane 6, a next-generation rocket that would feature a modular design less reliant on commercial launches than Ariane 5.

Designed to appeal to the global commercial market, Ariane launch vehicles have been the "go-to" rockets for satellite fleet operators worldwide for the past 20 years. With the March 23 liftoff of ESA's third Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-3), Europe's commercial launch consortium, Arianespace, boasts 47 consecutive Ariane 5 missions without a failure while comprising almost half of the global commercial market.

Despite this track record of reliability, the likelihood of the U.S. dollar remaining sharply lower than the euro in the coming years, coupled with emerging competition from the U.S. Falcon 9, Chinese Long March and new Indian rockets has led French government officials and some outside analysts to conclude that the relatively high cost of Ariane 5 launches can no longer be sustained.

Arianespace is already lowering operating costs by 15-20% through an uptick in launch tempo with the addition of new capabilities, including a European variant of the medium-lift Russian Soyuz rocket and a brand-new Italian-built light-launcher dubbed Vega. Ariane 5 ME could further lower costs, EADS-Astrium argues, by boosting performance with co-manifested launches weighing a combined 12,000 kg (26,455 lb.) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) for the same price as an Ariane 5 launch today.

The argument for Ariane 5 ME assumes the commercial market is trending toward larger, heavier satellites that can be launched two at a time. But, as Arianespace has learned, orchestrating such dual launches of commercial and sometimes government payloads is tricky, and achieving optimum payload capacity is not always possible.

Unlike the Ariane 5, which has required Arianespace to capture up to 50% of the commercial market just to break even, the Ariane 6 could get by solely on anticipated European government demand—roughly two or three launches annually—making the next-generation launcher less reliant on the commercial market than Ariane 5 or its planned upgrade. While the Ariane 6 would maintain the same launch rhythm—between five and seven annually—as its predecessor, it would do so at a much lower cost. And while Arianespace currently struggles to fill the Ariane 5's massive dual-payload capacity—currently more than 9,000 kg and up to 12,000 kg with the new upper stage—the modular Ariane 6 could accommodate launches of single spacecraft weighing 3,000-8,000 kg at a price tailored to fit customer needs. In contrast to the situation today, Arianespace would never have to worry about losing money on a launch for which it is unable to fill the rocket to capacity..

Such a business model, France argues, would mean Arianespace would no longer have to slug it out in the commercial market in order to survive. The consortium could be viable with only two or three European military or civil launches per year, with a few commercial missions to fill out the 5-7 needed to sustain the Ariane 5. Ariane 6's net effect on commercial launch prices would depend on how much of a splash new entrants to the market ultimately make. Although a less commercially reliant Ariane 6 could put upward pressure on prices, the emergence of new launchers in the U.S., China, India and Brazil would tend to drive prices down.

Over the past several months ESA has queried its largest European customers—SES, Eutelsat, Hispasat and European militaries—as to their requirements for a future launcher. SES President Romain Bausch says his company—the world's second-largest commercial satellite operator in terms of revenue—favors Ariane 6 over Ariane 5 ME.

"We see the market splitting into two groups of satellites, one 3 to 3.5 tonnes, the other 6 to 6.5 tonnes." Bausch said on the sidelines of the Satellite 2012 conference in Washington March 12. "ESA has asked us our thoughts about the market and we have told them what we thought. It is certainly along the lines of what has been called Ariane 6, a modular vehicle capable of launching one satellite at a time, covering the two weight classes into GTO."

ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain is expected to seek design proposals from industry this month for building a next-generation launcher under a procurement strategy that would alter the 19-nation agency's acquisition approach to facilitate more competition among companies in an effort to lower development costs.

Traditionally, ESA has relied on member states to ante up funding every three years for specific development programs, leaving the agency to build the project while adhering to a geographic return policy, guaranteeing a 90% return on investment for participating countries in the form of industrial work shares.

Last year, an outside audit of Ariane 5 manufacturers found that unless European governments agreed to bend ESA's geographic return policy, the agency would be hard-pressed to find savings in the Ariane 5 program, including Ariane 5 ME.

Dordain, who hopes to have the industry proposals in hand by the November ministerial, believes the shift in acquisition approach would indeed lower the cost to develop a new launcher, a figure that France and Germany say is expected to be €3-5 billion. At a minimum, he expects ESA ministers to make a decision on the first phase of a next-generation launcher at the November meeting.

"I wish to know by at least the end of the year the architecture of the next-generation launch vehicle and the industrial team," he says.

But while Dordain's cost-saving approach is sure to put pressure on existing suppliers to lower prices, tampering with ESA's current industrial return rules could alienate some of its key financial backers.

ЦитироватьBORDEAUX, FRANCE — It has been 25 years since European governments last made a major decision on the direction of the Ariane rocket system. This fall they may take the next step.

Ministers from the 19-nation European Space Agency (ESA) are scheduled to meet in late November in Caserta, Italy, to set their budget and program priorities for the coming years.

Every aspect of ESA's work — including telecommunications, Earth observation, exploration and manned flight, navigation and meteorology — will be tackled, but how to proceed with Ariane may have the most long-term impact.

Battling for support from the ministers are two ideas. Both have their defenders and detractors among industrial rocket-component builders, government agencies and government satellite system designers.

ESA and European government officials say that whichever idea is selected, it must lead to a rocket that does not need government financial support for its operations once its development is completed.

Ariane 5 has been operated without a failure since late 2002 and has logged 48 consecutive successes. It has maintained a 40-50 percent share of the commercial satellite launch market during this period.

But the vehicle still requires some 100 million euros ($130 million) per year in government cash contributions to permit the Arianespace launch consortium to reach the financial break-even point.

"We cannot provide support for exploitation costs indefinitely," ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said here May 7 at the Space Propulsion 2012 conference, organized by the French 3AF association. "This is key. The question is, how can we reach that objective?"

The first development option, which ESA governments began funding at their last ministerial conference in 2008, is called Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution, or Ariane 5 ME.

Ariane 5 ME features the new Vinci restartable upper-stage engine, next-generation avionics, a 20-meter-long rocket fairing and an upgraded vehicle equipment bay. Its goal: to increase the payload-carrying power of the current Ariane 5 heavy-lift vehicle by about 20 percent, enabling it to carry two satellites weighing a combined 11,000 kilograms into the geostationary transfer orbit that is the destination of most telecommunications satellites.

Ariane 5 ME backers have pledged that the upgraded vehicle would cost no more to build than the current Ariane 5 ECA, and that it would be ready for flight starting in 2017.

The competing idea that ESA ministers will review is a next-generation vehicle, sometimes called Ariane 6. Its focus is keeping operating costs down with a modular vehicle tailored to adapt to different market conditions.

Cryogenic- and solid-propellant combinations for Ariane 6 — all using existing facilities and based on existing technologies — are being considered.

The design requirements are that the rocket be capable of launching, one at a time, satellites weighing between 2,000 and 6,500 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit, with an expansion capability to 8,000 kilograms.

Michel Eymard, director of launchers at the French space agency, CNES, said Ariane 6 also must be able to reach financial break-even with as few as six launches in a given year.

Addressing the conference May 7, Eymard said CNES's current thinking is that Ariane 6 would launch between six and 14 times per year, with an average year featuring nine liftoffs — or the equivalent of 4.5 Ariane 5 launch campaigns. Ariane 5 typically has been launching five or six times a year; this year the schedule calls for seven launches.

Ariane 6 is designed to cost 30-40 percent less to build and launch than Ariane 5. It would require no government financial support for operations once development is completed. The new vehicle would be operational in 2020.

CNES is a principal shareholder in Arianespace and has been the source of at least half the money ESA has spent on the successive Ariane variants for more than 30 years. The French government has allocated about 200 million euros in public bond monies to study Ariane 6 technologies.

Where CNES and the French government stand on the issue of Ariane 5 ME or Ariane 6 is not clear. Eymard said the decision is being made based on three criteria. Rocket economics is 43 percent of the total, he said. The vehicle's technical performance is weighted at 30 percent, and industrial concerns — who could build what pieces to win ESA support — accounts for the remaining 27 percent of the decision.

The most vocal detractors of Ariane 6 have been officials from Astrium Space Transportation, the Ariane 5 prime contractor; and the German government, whose industry is presumed to have more to gain from Ariane 5 ME than from Ariane 6.

Astrium Space Transportation officials say Ariane 6's design and industry work-share distribution are insufficiently known to permit a go-ahead decision in November.

To sweeten the Ariane 5 ME proposal, Astrium Space Transportation officials have said Arianespace would no longer need annual ESA support payments for operating costs once the ME vehicle is operational. Whether the company and its contractors will be willing to commit, in writing, to this is unclear.

One Astrium Space Transportation official said further that a decision to go directly to Ariane 6 this year would require investments from European governments starting in 2013 that these governments may not be able to provide given Europe's public-debt crisis.

Stefan Schlechtriem, director of the Institute of Space Propulsion at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, told the conference that most German officials are in favor of Ariane 5 ME. Schlechtriem oversees Germany's Lampoldshausen rocket engine test facility, which may see more business with Ariane 5 ME than with Ariane 6.

Germany and France have created a bilateral working group in an attempt to forge a consensus on the Ariane 5 ME/Ariane 6 debate. This group is scheduled to deliver its conclusions by June 30.

Working on a parallel track, Dordain has asked European industry to come up with its own Ariane 6 proposals. ESA has sent out an invitation to tender and expects to contract with two competing consortia by June.

Dordain said the two consortia will be given one-year contracts but that he wants initial conclusions by September — in time to integrate them into ESA's formal proposals for the November ministerial conference.

That is not much time, he admitted. "The calendar is tight but in my view we have no choice," Dordain said. "If there is a chance to find a model where support for [operating costs] comes to an end, then I have to tell the member states."

ЦитироватьPARIS — A six-month joint French-German government study of future launch vehicle and space station investment options has reinforced the German space agency's preference for an upgraded Ariane 5 rocket instead of a new-generation Ariane 6, and cooperation with the United States on a U.S.-led crew vehicle instead of a European-led alternative, the agency's chief said Aug. 21.

Johann-Dietrich Woerner, chairman of the German Aerospace Center, DLR, insisted in an interview that he was speaking only for himself, and not for the German government.

The government's formal position on both subjects will be crafted in the coming weeks as Germany and the 18 other members of the European Space Agency (ESA) prepare for a late-November conference to set Europe's space policy and budget priorities.

As a prelude to this conference, Woerner said, the French and German ministers responsible for space policy will meet Sept. 22 in Zurich along with their counterparts from Italy, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The goal of this meeting is to iron out remaining differences, particularly between France and Germany — which together account for about 50 percent of ESA's annual member-state contributions — in advance of the November meeting in Caserta, Italy.

In an attempt to head off a confrontation at the conference between Europe's two biggest space powers, the French and German governments in February appointed a committee to investigate the two most controversial items likely to be raised at the meeting.

The French-German committee, including representatives from DLR and the French space agency, CNES, submitted its report to the two government ministries in late July. The report has not been made public.

The first of the two contentious issues assessed in the report is whether to complete development of the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (ME) rocket, giving the vehicle a 20 percent boost in payload-carrying power and a reignitable upper stage.

Opposing that idea was a French view that Europe should bypass Ariane 5 ME and begin immediate investment in a next-generation rocket with a modular design. Unlike its more powerful predecessor, built to carry two satellites at a time to geostationary transfer orbit, the new vehicle would be designed to profitably carry single satellites weighing 2,500 to 6,500 kilograms, with a possible increase to 8,000 kilograms.

Backers of the new rocket, tentatively called Ariane 6, say the commercial market is developing in such a way as to make the current Ariane 5 too costly to remain competitive in the coming years. Without a dominant share of the commercial market, these officials say, Europe's Arianespace consortium cannot make ends meet and will be even more dependent than it is today on annual government support payments.

Evry, France-based Arianespace, which operates the Ariane 5, needs about 120 million euros ($150 million) in annual government payments to break even, despite the fact that the rocket has captured about 50 percent of the competitive global market and has posted 50 consecutive launch successes.

Ariane 5 ME backers say debt-laden ESA governments cannot afford to begin full-scale development of the Ariane 6 now, and should finish the work on Ariane 5 ME that started in 2008, when ESA members agreed to spend 357 million euros on the effort, mainly on the Vinci restartable engine.

ESA now assumes it will cost about 1.4 billion euros to complete Ariane 5 ME, including an inaugural flight by 2018.

To sweeten the appeal of Ariane 5 ME, Ariane 5 contractor Astrium Space Transportation in early August wrote ESA to guarantee that, under certain conditions, the upgraded rocket will enable Arianespace to operate with no annual support payments once it is operational in 2018.

The conditions, according to Woerner, include industrial work-share concessions that will give Astrium Space Transportation a de facto monopoly, a scenario he said may be acceptable after further discussion.

"If we are going to accept these conditions, we have to be sure that the guarantee is very, very clear," Woerner said.

Woerner said that while different cost estimates have been assigned to the Ariane 6 option, the price tag is likely to be around 4.5 billion euros over 10 years. During that time, he said, the current version of Ariane 5 will require 120 million euros per year in support payments, which brings the total cost to ESA governments to 5.7 billion euros over 10 years.

Woerner said pursuing Ariane 5 ME and Ariane 6 development simultaneously might be no more expensive than proceeding directly to Ariane 6 because of synergies in the two vehicles' designs that would shave total costs by 15-20 percent or so.

But the Ariane 5 ME option is still the most cost-effective alternative now and leaves ESA governments with sufficient additional financing to back other ESA programs in Earth observation and relating to the space station.

The French-German study also examined whether Europe should join the United States in developing the Orion deep-space crew transport vehicle by investing the 450 million euros Europe owes NASA for space station charges to 2020.

A French alternative, which had found support in Italy, proposed a Europe-led vehicle that would operate in low Earth orbit and perform a variety of missions, including possible removal of orbital debris.

Woerner said the alternative vehicle would cost far more than the 450 million euros ESA has to spend to repay NASA for station use, and that Europe's current financial condition will render that option unfeasible for now.

Whether France will be willing to invest in the Orion vehicle remains unclear. A CNES official said Aug. 22 that the agency will reserve comment about the report until the French government has reviewed it.

Цитировать23 November 2012 Last updated at 12:59 GMT
Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent

Ariane rocket ready to do battle

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/82469.jpg)
Ariane 5ME and 6 Ministers approved a dual track that encompasses Ariane 5ME (left) and Ariane 6 (right)

Europe's Ariane 5 rocket has established itself as the dominant force in the satellite launch market.

The big European vehicle throws up everything fr om three-tonne TV satellites to the 20-tonne ATV space truck used to resupply astronauts on the ISS.

Half of the major telecommunications platforms lofted every year ride the European battlehorse.

But as good as it is, Ariane is under pressure. Competitors are circling and changes are needed if the vehicle is to retain its benchmark status.

We got a glimpse this week of where the rocket is heading after research ministers approved a 600m euros programme of developments at their European Space Agency council meeting in Naples.

Work will continue to give Ariane 5 a major upgrade, to provide it with a more powerful upper-stage engine that will also have a stop-start capability.

These modifications will enable the vehicle to better optimize its payload capacity for heavier, more lucrative satellite customers - and also to offer a broader range of orbits to those clients.

This Mid-Life Evolution (ME), as it is known, is now scheduled to fly in 2017/18.

But ministers have not stopped there. At the same time, they want to see detailed studies to define the next generation rocket - an Ariane 6.

Early thinking is that this will be a smaller rocket than Ariane 5 with a modular design capable of lifting one satellite at a time weighing from three to 6.5 tonnes.

A final pronouncement on whether to proceed with the project is likely in 2014. A maiden flight could occur in 2021/22.

The Esa ministerial council outcome was warmly welcomed by Jean-Yves Le Gall, the man who heads up Arianespace, the commercial operator of Europe's big rocket.

"It was a great success," he told me. "Now we have a shining future. The most important consequence of the ministerial decisions is that our vision is now much further forward than it was before. Before we had just to launch Ariane 5. Now we have a reason which is launching Ariane 6 in 10 years' time, and I can tell you we have a lot of young people here who are very excited."
Ministerial meeting The research ministers of Europe will meet again in 2014 to review progress

There's been a lot of fuss recently about the impact that aggressive competitors will have on Ariane's market share.

You may have seen my interview last week with SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk wh ere he said Ariane 5 had "no chance" in the face of his new Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. The European vehicle could get nowhere near his prices, the entrepreneur contended.
"Start Quote

 If you really want to exist in this business you must be very humble because it's a difficult business"

Jean-Yves Le Gall Arianespace

Certainly, there've been plenty of people queuing up to echo the voice of doom on Ariane. French politicians, for example, who visited the SpaceX factory in California came away wanting a direct move to Ariane 6. The successor vehicle is expected to incorporate much cheaper components and fabrication methods than the current rocket, or indeed Ariane 5ME.

But Le Gall calls for cooler heads. Ariane 5 is not about to fall away. The rocket has a proven track record of reliability, and in the launch business that is everything.

"Some of our competitors, for instance Proton, are suffering almost one failure every year, which is huge. And I want to remind people that behind us we have 52 successes in a row.

"And there are other competitors, such as SpaceX, who speak a lot but have not yet launched a lot, and I think if you really want to exist in this business you must be very humble because it's a difficult business, and in my opinion you can only really speak when you have an excellent track record."

Le Gall accepts that Ariane 5 is pricey, but says he has fulfilled his commitment to constrain price by reducing the cost of operating the vehicle's spaceport in French Guiana by 20%.

But there is no magic formula that will reduce the industrial cost of producing the existing Ariane 5.
Ariane launch It's now 52 successful flights in a row

Unlike the SpaceX Falcons which are made in one place (more than 70% of a vehicle by value is made in the single factory), Arianes by definition are made across Europe. A dozen countries are involved in the Ariane 5ME project. This community approach must change long-term, and it is likely that the Ariane 6, when it arrives, will have an industrial base pretty much confined to France and Germany.

That may well offend some Esa member states but it's a fact of life that research ministers will have to grapple with when they gather again in 2014 to pronounce on the next phase of Ariane 6 development.

They should also have a clearer idea then of what this rocket should look like. It seems obvious, but Esa director general Jean-Jacques Dordain has been asking satellite operators precisely what they want.

"I've asked them, 'what is the launcher that you dream of?'; and they've given me their dreams," he told reporters in Naples.

"What I wish to do now is tell the launcher industry in Europe, 'OK, can you now fulfil the dreams of the customers?'.

"The customers want, obviously, the most reliable vehicle in the world - and at least on that, Ariane 5 is much more reliable than a lot of other vehicles. They want a launcher that is available, and that will launch between 3-3.5 tonnes and 6-6.5t. And, number four, they want a rocket that is cheaper than Proton and Falcon 9. This is the cahier des charges (specification base)."

ЦитироватьESA, Germany Split on Test Site for Ariane 5 ME Upper Stage

Nov. 30, 2012

(http://www.spacenews.com/sites/spacenews.com/files/images/articles/PlumbrookRocket_NASA4X3.jpg)
Technicians prepare a full-scale upper-stage rocket engine for testing in NASA's Plumbrook Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility. Credit: NASA photo

WASHINGTON — Following the European Space Agency's (ESA) decision to fly an upgraded version of its workhorse Ariane 5 rocket by 2018, ESA and NASA officials plan to meet in early January to discuss testing the launcher's new restartable cryogenic upper stage at NASA's Plum Brook Station in northwestern Ohio.

However, Johann-Dietrich Woerner, the head of the German Aerospace Center, or DLR, said his agency would like to run those tests itself, provided that a new facility comparable to the massive Plum Brook's B-2 Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility — which NASA bills as "the world's only facility capable of testing full-scale upper-stage launch vehicles and rocket engines under simulated high-altitude conditions" — can be built at DLR's existing rocket test site in Lampoldshausen, Germany.

At a Nov. 30 Capitol Hill breakfast hosted by the Space Transportation Association, Woerner said DLR is competing to bring the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (ME) upper-stage tests to Lampoldshausen, despite ESA's preference to test at NASA's one-of-a-kind facility.

"ESA is in favor of going to the United States," Woerner said at the breakfast. "I, as head of the research center DLR, of course, would be happy if we could test it at DLR. The advantage of using the site in the United States is that you have it already. We don't have it at Lampoldshausen at DLR, but we would be eager to build one for it."

An ESA spokeswoman said the agency will not settle the issue until next year.

"Testing the upper stage of Ariane 5 ME at NASA's Plum Brook is still an option being considered," Brigitte Kolmsee, a Paris-based ESA spokeswoman said Nov. 30. "The decision to proceed or not with this is going to be expected in the second half of 2013."
NASA's Spacecraft Propulsion Facility (B-2)

There is one hitch to testing the Ariane 5 ME's upper stage in the United States: NASA's B-2 facility, built during the mid-1960s and last used for rocket propulsion testing in the 1990s, needs several million dollars worth of repairs before it can simulate an upper-atmosphere environment. NASA expects ESA to foot the bill for these repairs.

"There is no NASA funding for the refurbishment," NASA spokeswoman Rachel Kraft wrote in a Nov. 27 email. Kraft said NASA officials and their ESA counterparts "have been working on a draft test plan, and should ESA make the decision to test at B-2, which has yet to be made, it is expected that there will be a refurbishment of the B-2 test facility."

Astrium Space Transportation, a subsidiary of the Europe's EADS aerospace conglomerate, is under contract to build the Ariane 5 ME upper stage. The stage will be powered by a reignitable Vinci cryogenic engine, built by the Snecma division of Safran S.A. DLR has already tested the Vinci engine at Lampoldshausen.

Back in April, Jim Free, deputy director for NASA Glenn, said that the Plum Brook B-2 facility needed to have its steam ejection system overhauled to handle the tests ESA has in mind for the Ariane 5 ME's upper stage. The needed B-2 repairs would cost several million dollars, Free said. According to NASA, a fully functioning B-2 facility could accommodate engines that produce up to 1.8 meganewtons of thrust for tests lasting as long as 14 minutes.

ESA member nations have been working on Ariane ME since 2008. The heaviest Ariane 5 configuration in service today, Ariane 5 ECA, can launch about 10 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit. Most commercial communications satellites are dropped off there before using onboard propulsion to climb to geostationary orbit roughly 36,000 kilometers above the equator.

Germany and France, the two largest financial contributors among ESA's 20 European member states, have had a longstanding disagreement about what path the Ariane rocket family should follow to compete with emerging launch services providers in China, India, Russia and the United States.

Germany favored Ariane 5 ME, which provides a 20 percent increase in payload carrying capacity compared with the current Ariane 5. France argued for an entirely new and smaller rocket, Ariane 6, as Europe's best bet for remaining competitive in the commercial satellite launch market. Ariane 5 has carved out its position as the commercial launch market leader by lofting two satellites at once. Ariane 6 would launch only one satellite at a time.

At ESA's latest ministerial conference, held Nov. 20-21 in Naples, Italy, France acquiesced to Germany's preference for an Ariane 5 upgrade, resulting in an ESA commitment to spend 187 million euros ($243 million) on Ariane 5 ME development over the next two years. But in addition, ESA will spend 244 million euros to make sure that the Ariane 5 ME upper stage could also be used in future Ariane 6 designs. ESA member states agreed in Naples to revisit the Ariane 6 issue in mid-2014.

ЦитироватьSalo пишет:
 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MX2NxTBL51I (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MX2NxTBL51I)

ЦитироватьДмитрий В. пишет:
Интересно, почему они отказались от совмещенных днищ и сделали конструкцию а-ля верхняя ступень Дельты-4 и Н-2А/В?

ЦитироватьSpaceR пишет:
Так на снимке вроде как и есть ступень от "Дельты".Для ариановской пока ещё рановато.

ЦитироватьSpaceR пишет:
Думаю, ферма с выпуклыми днищами просто позволяют снизить конечную массу ступени, в ущерб массе МСО и общей длине. Если это допустимо, то почему бы и нет?

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Французам надо не тупить а срочно доделывать Винчи и делать ракету с выводом непосредственно на ГСО. Пока их американцы со своим новым поколением спутников только с ЭРД не оставили без хлеба. Мы, впрочем, тоже.

ЦитироватьДмитрий В. пишет:
Французы, в общем, не против, только вместо Ариан-5 хотят видеть более гибкую и менее зависимую от конъюнктуры рынка Ариан-6  ;)

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:

ЦитироватьДмитрий В. пишет:
Французы, в общем, не против, только вместо Ариан-5 хотят видеть более гибкую и менее зависимую от конъюнктуры рынка Ариан-6  ;)  

Дык чтоб тянуть непосредственно на ГСО ракета должна быть довольно таки изрядной.

ЦитироватьДмитрий В. пишет:
8 с лишком тонн на ГПО, это в районе 4 т на ГСО (при довыведении с помощью ДУ КА). А если с помощью КВРБ то и существенно больше.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:

ЦитироватьДмитрий В. пишет:
8 с лишком тонн на ГПО, это в районе 4 т на ГСО (при довыведении с помощью ДУ КА). А если с помощью КВРБ то и существенно больше.

С помощью КВРБ туда прийдётся тащить и сам КВРБ. А его массу в отличие от массы спутника уменьшить невозможно.

ЦитироватьДмитрий В. пишет:
По-любому при этом масса ПГ будет выше, чем при довыведении собственной ДУ.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Эффект не в том что выводится больше ПГ а в том что спутник без апогейной ДУ и топлива вдвое легче.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Эффект не в том что выводится больше ПГ а в том что спутник без апогейной ДУ и топлива вдвое легче.

ЦитироватьДмитрий В. пишет:
Тут уже заказчики пусть выбирают, что им выгоднее - более легкий и дешевый или более тяжелыый и дорогой аппарат.

ЦитироватьSalo пишет:
Не думаю, что бочка с гидразином и апогейник слишком дороги на фоне полезной нагрузки. Они всё-равно нужны для коррекции наклонения в течении САС.
А надёжность повышается - можно попытаться исправить косяк РБ за счёт сокрашения САС спутника.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Военные заказчики под Титан-3С, Титан-401/402, Шаттл/IUS, Хэви Дельту
выбрали аппараты без двигателей, с доставкой прямо на ГСО.

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
 Однако новые поколения этих аппаратов, за исключением РЭР, переведены на коммерческие платформы и выводятся через ГПО.
 

ЦитироватьНу и немаловажным фактором является уменьшение САС и числа включений верхней ступени при запуске через ГПО. 

Цитировать  Что касается нас, то при достигнутом уровне массового совершенства ступеней и УИ двигателей вывод через ГПО на четырехступенчатом Протоне не дает существенных преимуществ перед прямым выведением. На иностранных же двух и трехступенчатых носителях выгода от довыведения при полном использовании их грузоподъемности существенно выше даже несмотря на использование водорода на верхних ступенях. 

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Не волнуйтесь - Навстары крайней серии (2F?) стали выводиться прямо на целевую
орбиту. А они помассовекй будут чем все остальные военные спутники вместе
взятые. Так что тенденция продолжается и расширяется.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
На коммерческом фронте Боинг (бывший Хьюз) предложил серию спутников
предназначеных для выведения непосредственно на ГСО. Пойдёт ли дело -
неизвестно, но начало положено. Коммерция будет выводиться непомредственно на
ГСО.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
А число включений бортовой ЖРДУ спутника для перевода с ГПО на ГСО немаловажным
фактором не является?  ;)  И САС геостационарного спутника
в нерасчётной конфигурации, в нерасчётном режиме полёта и сквозь радиационные
пояса?

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Выгода и на Протоне и на зарубежных носителях примерно одинакова - уменьшение ПН
вдвое.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Основная выгода в двух факторах:
-полное отсутствие на спутнике ЖРДУ и
топлива для неё.
- геостационарный спутник не рассчитывается на
нестандартный для него режим перелёта с ГПО на ГСО.
Сейчас спутник
представляет из себя "спутник-разгонный блок", а так он станет просто спутником.

Цитироватьfagot пишет: А вот то, что новые поколения DSCS, TDRS, DSP и Милстаров стали выводиться через ГПО, вы предпочитаете не замечать. Те же SBIRS GEO можно с большим запасом выводить напрямую, но этого почему-то не делается.

ЦитироватьПросто, в отличие от Дельты-2, огромный запас грузоподъемности и многократное включение верхней ступени EELV позволяют выводить их напрямую, экономя на ДУ спутника. 

ЦитироватьНасколько я понимаю, 702SP будет выводиться через ГПО на ЭРД. 

ЦитироватьЕсли сравнить Протон и средние версии EELV, то на Протоне выигрыш от довыведения составит примерно 10 - 15 %, на Атласе-5 в зависимости от конфигурации - 20 - 30 % и на Дельте-4 - 25 - 100 %.

ЦитироватьВсе это так, но изначальная концепция именно в этом и заключалась - у нас использовался отдельный РБ, а у них - совмещенный со спутником и с иным распределением ХС между ступенями. С появлением новых поколений носителей выгода от запуска через ГПО несколько уменьшилась, но все же остается достаточно существенной.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Для них просто для экономии взяли существующие платформы серийных
спутников.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Ещё раз: запас грузоподъёмности не при чём. Одна и та же ракета с одной и той же
грузоподъёмностью может или вывести спутник с ЖРДУ на ГПО или тот же спутник но
без ЖРДУ на ГСО. Отличие от Дельты-2 только в том что требуется повторное
включение РБ через несколько часов. Ни РДТТ Дельты ни Центавр Атлас-Центавра
такой возможностью не обладали. Именно этот фактор и привёл в своё время к
массовому развитию спутников с самостоятельным переходом на ГСО.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Перейти на ЭРД с ГПО на ГСО скажем так весьма проблематично. Так что как я
понимаю речь идёт лишь о небольшом довыведении, что уже делается и в наше
время.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Ничего не понял.  :(  Это что за "выигрыш"? Вы данные о
ПН всех этих ракет на ГПО и ГСО смотрели?

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Вся ихняя концепция сводилась к тому что у них просто физически не было ракет
способных вывести спутник непосредственно на ГСО. Титан-3С слишком велик и дорог
для тогдашнего коммерческого спутника, а что ещё? Отсюда же и "концепция" стабилизированных вращением спутников.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Перейти на ЭРД с ГПО на ГСО скажем так весьма проблематично. 

Цитировать

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:

Перейти на ЭРД с ГПО на ГСО скажем так весьма проблематично. Так что как я
понимаю речь идёт лишь о небольшом довыведении, что уже делается и в наше
время.

fagot пишет:

Тут спорить не буду, подождем запуска или новых данных. Но вообще интересно, как Флакон обеспечит им небольшое довыведение.

ЦитироватьSalo пишет:
А для нас этот способ наиболее интересен.

Цитироватьмастер_лукьянов пишет:
Особенно теперь, когда энергетика спутников (15 и более кВт) потенциально может обеспечить приличную тягу ЭРД - порядка 1 Н.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:

Цитироватьмастер_лукьянов пишет:
Особенно теперь, когда энергетика спутников (15 и более кВт) потенциально может обеспечить приличную тягу ЭРД - порядка 1 Н.

Вместе с энергетикой растёт и масса. Так что удельная тяговооружённость остаётся прежней.

Цитироватьмастер_лукьянов пишет:

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:

Цитироватьмастер_лукьянов пишет:
Особенно теперь, когда энергетика спутников (15 и более кВт) потенциально может обеспечить приличную тягу ЭРД - порядка 1 Н.

Вместе с энергетикой растёт и масса. Так что удельная тяговооружённость остаётся прежней.

Не согласен:
Горизонт 1978 2200кг 1300 Вт 0,6 Вт/кг
ЭкспрессАМ 2003 2600кг 6300 Вт 2,4 Вт/кг
Экспресс1000 2010 1700кг 6000 Вт 3,5 Вт/кг
Экспресс2000 2013? 3300кг 14000 Вт 4,2 Вт/кг

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Вместе с энергетикой растёт и масса. Так что удельная тяговооружённость остаётся прежней.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
 Для нормальных (от Экспресса-АМ) спутников - в два раза. 

Цитироватьмастер_лукьянов пишет:

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
 Для нормальных (от Экспресса-АМ) спутников - в два раза.

Цитироватьмастер_лукьянов пишет:

было: 
стало:

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
Все-таки интересно, как ,по-вашему, Фалкон-9 четыре тонны напрямую выведет?

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Фалкон? Нет.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Кстати, и Атлас-Центавр образца 70-х не мог вывести непосредственно на ГСО
приличной ПН. Да наверно и любой Атлас до Атласа-2AS.
Для того чтоб
был паритет между ГПО и ГСО нужен РБ который выводится практически на ЛЕО. РБ
который работает в качестве орбитальной ступени не годится.

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
Ну вот, значит тут у нас консенсус.

Цитировать  И важно не только куда выводится РБ,  но и общее количество ступеней и их удельные параметры,

Цитироватьособенно, конечно, параметры самого РБ. 

Цитировать Собственно, все летавшие прямо на ГСО Титаны были минимум четырехступенчатыми, у Дельты-Хэви три водородных ступени, поэтому у них выигрыш от апогейника сравнительно невелик или вовсе отсутсвует, да еще и запас грузоподъемности у данных носителей для своего времени был немалый. 

ЦитироватьТо же относится и к Протону. Но у двух-трехступенчатых носителей, каковыми являлись и являются большинство иностранных, использование апогейника дает заметный выигрыш даже несмотря на использование водорода на верхних ступенях и близость космодромов к экватору.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Было "вместе с энерговооружённостью растёт и масса поэтомку у ваших галлюцинаций о переходе с ГПО на ГСО на ЭРД никаких шансов". Так и осталось. И перевод вами стрелок на дубовые советские спутники образца 70-х гг ничего в этом прискорбном факте не изменят.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Вместе с энергетикой растёт и масса. Так что удельная тяговооружённость остаётся прежней.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
 поэтомку у ваших галлюцинаций о переходе с ГПО на ГСО на ЭРД никаких шансов

Цитироватьмастер_лукьянов пишет:
При использовании ЭРД промежуточные орбиты в идеале должны быть круговые и бестеневые.

Цитироватьмастер_лукьянов пишет:
О, точно, галлюцинации.
Эта привидилась мне:

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Вместе с энергетикой растёт и масса. Так что удельная тяговооружённость остаётся прежней .

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
 Истина скорее где-то посередине между оптимистичными и пессимистичными оценками. Для более тяжелых версий выигрыш получается больше, для более легких меньше, то же и для Дельты-4.
Европейцы готовы потратить несколько миллиардов евро ради повышения ПН Арианы всего на 12 %.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Тут то консенсус. Именно это и объясняет почему до конца 90-х американцы и
европейцы вынуждены были делать спутники с самостоятельным переходом на ГСО.
Но я то говорю о современных РН - Протоне, Атласе-5, Дельте-4,
Ариане-5. Они вполне позволяют вывести от же спутник но без ЖРДУ
непосредственно на ГСО.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Куда выводится РБ служит только только индикатором этих параметров. РБ способный
выводить и на ГСО не тратит много ХС на вывод на ЛЕО.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
А вот параметры самого РБ несущественны. И гептиловый Бриз, и керосиновый ДМ и
водородный РБ Дельты-4 в этом вопросе примерно эквивалентны.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Независимо от количества ступеней, типа топлива и прочего они обладают общим
свойством - они дотаскивают РБ почти до орбиты и он тратит совсем немного ХС на
окончательный вывод на ЛЕО. То же и у Протона и Арианы-5. А вот у Атлас-Центавра
и Арианы-1/4 было не так.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Нет никакого выигрыша. Полезная масса при выведении прямо на ГСО выше. Даже у
Протона при запуске с Байконура.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Можно ещё учесть что не потребуется 15 лет тратить топливо на удержание 300 кг
жрдятины в точке стояния. Реально по ПН получается баш на
баш а вся экономия определяется отсутствием ДУ и топлива для неё и упрощением
процедуры выведения.

Цитироватьfagot пишет: а для версии без ускорителей - 100 %. И это все без учета довыведения на ЭРД. Причем американцы даже при избытке грузоподъемности РН выкидывать апогейник не спешат.

Цитироватьfagot пишет: Причем американцы даже при избытке грузоподъемности РН выкидывать апогейник не спешат.
Вам, конечно, хочется, чтобы по всему миру победила наша схема прямого выведения, но боюсь, пока для этого нет оснований. 

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
... Массовое совершенство апогейной ДУ по моим прикидкам получилось около 12, ...

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Во многих случаях Протон мог бы вывести зарубежный спутник непосредственно на
ГСО если бы в него слегка недолить топлива не говоря уж о выбросить ЖРДУ. Но
ЖРДУ ставят и заправляют полностью. И даже в том случае когда Протон дотягивает
спутник непосредственно до ГСО, ЖРДУ в нём полностью заправлена. Видимо всётаки
пока что универсальность важнее.

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
Так про это я и говорю, и на Зените так же, и на EELV.

ЦитироватьSpaceR пишет:
 Старый
Просто более выгодная схема. Как в части массы результирующей ПН, так и благодаря дополнительному резерву по надёжности на случай недовыведения.
Плюс ещё резервные годы САС на случай меньшего, чем в плане, расхода топлива на поддержание орбиты (что тоже бывает в большинстве)

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
, выгоднее лететь через ГПО, чем сливать топливо для прямого выведения.

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
И с EELV ситуация интереснее, чем с Протоном - унифицировать правительственные нагрузки с иностранными носителями незачем и оба конкурента могут выводить их напрямую. При этом был вариант безапогейной HS-601, а новое поколение GOESов летит через ГПО, есть безапогейный вариант A2100M, а SBIRSы с AEHFами летят через ГПО. Наиболее логичное объяснение - для прямого запуска требуется более тяжелый вариант носителя, что не оправдывает экономию на апогейной ДУ. Ну и с полетом РБ на стационар связываться лишний раз не хотят.

ЦитироватьИ еще по современным носителям такая теория. То, что они по распределению ХС между ступенями оказались более оптимальны для прямого выведения, чем их предшественники, вовсе не связано с планами использования их таким образом. Просто хитрые разработчики сделали довольно выжатые полностью новые нижние ступени, как бы сэкономив на верхних, которые делались либо упрощенными, либо с использованием элементов со старых носителей, и заложив при этом в РН изрядный модернизационный потенциал. По мере утяжеления спутников основная модернизация касается именно верхних ступеней, что наиболее наглядно на примере линейки Ариан-5G, - 5ECA, - 5ME. Ступени при этом увеличиваются и распределение ХС стремится к тому, что было у старых носителей. Для Атласа-5 в уме держат "толстый" Центавр, а для Дельты-4 как минимум новый двигатель второй ступени.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Скорее просто для экономии взяты стандартные
серийные платформы с апогейной ДУ.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Теория такая что перераспределение ХС связано с применением ускорителей внизу и
водорода вверху. Зарубежные ракеты без ускорителей не обладают таким свойством.
Низкая сухая масса РБ какраз способствует выводу на ГСО - меньшую лишнюю массу
приходится туда тащить. То есть Ариана-5, Атлас-5, Дельта-4 и Н-2 оптимальны
какраз под это. Увеличение массы РБ сдвинет оптимальность в сторону
ГПО. У Протона такое перераспределение ХС связано с
четырёхступенчатостью.

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
Ну вам прямо не угодишь - то с апогейником дешевле, то без. Варианты этих платформ без апогейника имеются и они так же серийные, но для ГСО их почему-то не используют.

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
Зарубежные носители с водородом были что раньше 2,5 - 3-ступенчатыми, что сейчас, кроме самых легких вариантов. Однако раньше они были оптимизированы под вывод через ГПО именно потому, что это максимизировало массу спутника на ГСО при ограничениях на увеличение стартовой массы носителя. Новое поколение делалось с большим запасом по грузоподъемности и с прицелом на модернизацию в дальнейшем, поэтому на данном этапе оно оказалось оптимальнее для прямого вывода, чем старое поколение. Если же возникает задача с минимальными затратами увеличить массу спутника на ГСО, это делается путем увеличения верхней ступени и носитель снова становится оптимизированным под ГПО. Но в том виде, как это реализовано, и сейчас летать прямо на ГСО в 2,5 - 3 ступени не выгодно даже с водородом наверху, особенно на Ариане-5 с ее рекордным массовым совершенством верхней ступени аж в 4 единицы.
И, кстати, если бы европейцы действительно ставили целью просто минимизировать затраты, они бы скорее делали верхнюю ступень по типу Дельты-4 и с парой HM-7B, а не это чудо с Винчи.

Цитировать  Новое поколение делалось с большим запасом по грузоподъемности и с прицелом на модернизацию в дальнейшем, поэтому на данном этапе оно оказалось оптимальнее для прямого вывода, чем старое поколение. Если же возникает задача с минимальными затратами увеличить массу спутника на ГСО, это делается путем увеличения верхней ступени и носитель снова становится оптимизированным под ГПО. Но в том виде, как это реализовано, и сейчас летать прямо на ГСО в 2,5 - 3 ступени не выгодно даже с водородом наверху, особенно на Ариане-5 с ее рекордным массовым совершенством верхней ступени аж в 4 единицы.
И, кстати, если бы европейцы действительно ставили целью просто минимизировать затраты, они бы скорее делали верхнюю ступень по типу Дельты-4 и с парой HM-7B, а не это чудо с Винчи.

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
Ну да, не устанавливать апогейную ДУ очень сложно и дорого.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Не были. Были такими как получится. Атлас-Центавр был оптимизирован под
межпланетную траекторию. Арианы первых серий никак не могли выводить третью
ступень почти на ЛЕО.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Новое поколение тоже получилось таким само, в основном потому что решили делать
водород на центре и ускорители снизу. Мощный водородный центральный блок тянет
РБ почти до орбиты и делает неоптимальным большой тяжёлый РБ. Вобще большая
верхняя ступень оптимальна для ЛЕО (Титан-2, Циклон, Зенит, Флакон), а разгонник
оптимально делать маленьким.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
А верхнюю ступень Арианы-5 сделали такой недоделаной чисто по причинам
отсутствия денег. Первоначльно там вообще гептильный РБ стоял.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:
Спутник будет совершенно другим. Другая конструкция, массоинерционные
характеристики. Исчезнут жидкостные двигатели в системе ориентации. И т.д.

ЦитироватьСтарый пишет:

Цитироватьfagot пишет:
Ну вам прямо не угодишь - то с апогейником дешевле, то без. Варианты этих платформ без апогейника имеются и они так же серийные, но для ГСО их почему-то не используют.

Такую платформу ещё надо создавать, испытывать. А готовая - вот она. Пока Боинг свою S не запустит никто не дёрнется.

ЦитироватьSalo пишет:
SS/L тоже такую разрабатывает и пугает довыведением за три месяца. Европейцы тоже озаботились и такую ваяют. А нам то тем более подсуетиться нужно.

ЦитироватьIgnoring Call for Strategic Pause, ESA Intends To Stay the Course on Ariane 6
By Peter B. de Selding | Jun. 7, 2013

(http://www.spacenews.com/sites/spacenews.com/files/styles/large/public/images/articles/AntonioFabrizi_ESA4X3.jpg)
ESA Launch Vehicle Director Antonio Fabrizi said the current Ariane 6 design, using two solid-fueled stages topped by a cryogenic upper stage, received the specific endorsement of ESA's governments last November and cannot simply be set aside. Credit: ESA photo
 

Спойлер

PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) has no intention of changing course for its future Ariane 6 rocket despite pointed criticism of the sel ected design by former ESA and European industry launch-vehicle experts, ESA Launch Vehicle Director Antonio Fabrizi said June 7.
Fabrizi said the current design, using two solid-fueled stages topped by a cryogenic upper stage, received the specific endorsement of ESA's governments last November and cannot simply be set aside. He said the vehicle's final design — both a single-block first stage and a multiblock cluster are being discussed — will be settled by early July.
Once ESA and the French space agency, CNES, freeze the Ariane 6 specifications, they will issue requests for information to European industry and then more-formal requests for bids on the Ariane 6 components.
These bids will be evaluated by the end of the year. ESA then will start the delicate procedure of asking governments where the winning bidders are located to invest in the Ariane 6 in proportion to the participation of their domestic industry. A final decision on the vehicle's development would then be made at a late-2014 conference of ESA government ministers.
Europe's Air & Space Academy in May wrote to ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain urging ESA to refrain from committing to the solid-fueled Ariane 6. The academy urged ESA to take four years to craft a more-powerful liquid-fueled alternative, and in the meantime to fund the 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) needed to complete work on an upgrade of the current Ariane 5.
The upgrade, called Ariane 5 ME, would increase the current Ariane 5's payload-carrying power with a new, reignitable upper stage.
In an interview, Fabrizi specifically rejected the academy's conclusion that a solid-fueled Ariane 6 is a dead-end technology incapable of adapting to future market conditions.
"I remember working on the Ariane 5 rocket's solid-fueled boosters in 1985 when they were 170,000 kilograms of propellant," Fabrizi said. "Then they grew to 210,000, then 230,000 and now they are 245,000 kilograms. Solid-fuel technology can evolve with the market."
Backers of the Ariane 6 solid-fueled version say the Ariane program has never had issues with its solid-propellant stages. In addition, the synergies between the solid-fueled Vega small-satellite launcher, which ESA has flown twice, and the future Ariane 6 solid-fueled design will result in economies for both vehicles.
"We have done these trade offs over the past year or so and we went to our ministers [last November] with a specific design that they approved," Fabrizi said. "We are now refining the specifics of it, but we cannot go against a design that has the endorsement of our ministers. We are moving according to plan and we are no more than a couple of weeks behind the schedule we set last November."
The Air & Space Academy's critique of the Ariane 6 as conceived by ESA and CNES included a second element: the role of Germany in Ariane 6. According to the academy, Ariane 6 will result in an upheaval of Europe's rocket-industry landscape and create fractures among ESA governments that will not be easily healed.
The academy said that, to maintain its goal of building and operating the vehicle for 70 million euros per launch, the Ariane 6 design will have to rely on only a few ESA member governments, meaning the future Ariane program will lose its broad support in Europe.
Fabrizi said Germany's likely leadership of the Ariane 6 cryogenic upper stage, plus work on the lower stages borrowing on what OHB AG's MT Aerospace does for today's Ariane 5, will enable the Ariane 6 program to promise 20-25 percent of its industrial share to Germany and ensure German backing.
Up to now, the German government and German industry have been skeptical about Ariane 6 and have focused their support on Ariane 5 ME.
Fabrizi said that 500 million to 600 million euros spent developing the Ariane 5 ME's upper stage will be directly applicable to Ariane 6 because both will use the same Vinci restartable engine and share other components even if they do not use the same fuel tanks.
As to whether ESA governments in late 2014 will have a strong enough appetite for launch vehicle development to fund both Ariane 5 ME, scheduled to fly in 2017-2018, and a 10-year, 4 billion euro Ariane 6 development program, Fabrizi said it is too soon to tell.
"For both Ariane 5 ME and Ariane 6 we still need to receive final proposals," Fabrizi said. "We will see what results from a real competition among bidders."
More immediately, he said, ESA will ask its launcher program board the week of June 17 to consider improvements to the current Ariane 5 design to permit the vehicle to maintain its ability to find pairs of telecommunications satellites to launch at the same time.
Finding a smaller commercial telecommunications satellite to fit in the Sylda compartment of Ariane 5 ECA is becoming more difficult for the Arianespace commercial launch consortium.
Fabrizi said several options, both inside the Sylda and outside it under the Ariane 5 fairing, are being considered. One is a longer fairing, which Fabrizi said is an alternative that would take a couple of years to develop and qualify. Another is an enlarged Sylda structure to house the smaller of the two satellites Ariane 5 ECA carries into orbit with each flight.
Depending on the choice made, the governments whose industry stands to benefit fr om the work will be asked to finance it.

[свернуть]

ЦитироватьEurope's Rocket Designers Crafting a SpaceX Defense
By Peter B. de Selding | Jun. 19, 2013

LE BOURGET, France – Designers of Europe's Ariane 5 rocket are crafting a defense against U.S. startup rocket builder Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) even before the next-generation Ariane 6 rocket – itself spurred in part by SpaceX – has been approved for production.

The first line of defense is the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution vehicle, whose new upper stage is halfway completed and awaits final approval, in late 2014, of European governments.

Ariane 5 ME will increase the current Ariane 5 ECA's payload-carrying power by about 20 percent, meaning it will carry two satellites weighing a combined 11,000 kilograms.

Alain Charmeau, president of Ariane 5 prime contractor Astrium Space Transportation, outlined Ariane 5 ME's two-pronged defense – one aimed at Russia's heavy-lift Proton rocket, Ariane 5's biggest competitor, the second aimed at SpaceX's Falcon 9 vehicle – during a June 18 briefing here at the Paris Air Show.

The upper position under the Ariane 5 ME fairing is occupied by a satellite weighing around 6,500 kilograms, which is what the current Proton vehicle carries solo into orbit on its commercial flights. Because most commercial satellite fleet operators tailor their satellites to be compatible with at least two launch vehicles, there is little incentive for rocket builders to get too far ahead of the competition in terms of satellite mass.

With the upper position in the Ariane 5 ME competing with Proton, marketed by International Launch Services of Reston, Va., it is up to the lower position to compete with Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX and the upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket scheduled to make its debut this year.

The upgraded Falcon 9 is capable of carrying a 4,500-kilogram satellite into geostationary transfer orbit.

One of the Falcon 9's most potent arguments is that it is capable of carrying two all-electric-propulsion satellites at a time into geostationary transfer orbit. But according to the first customer of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems' all-electric 702SP platform, Satmex of Mexico, it will take the Satmex satellite about eight months to reach its final orbital position and begin generating revenue.

Charmeau said Ariane 5 ME will use its re-ignitable upper stage to place an all-electric satellite into a higher orbit than what is offered by the Falcon 9, reducing the time to arrival by around two months.

Jacques Breton, commercial director of the Arianespace launch consortium of Evry, France, which operates the Ariane 5, said it is too soon to say how much closer to its final operating slot Ariane 5 ME can place a satellite compared to Falcon 9. But the idea, he said, is to take maximum use of Ariane 5 ME's extra power to minimize the amount of time needed for operators to start earning a return on their investment.

ЦитироватьThe shape of Europe's next launcher will be revealed as soon as end-June, with the selection of the configuration of the Ariane 6 rocket.
The European Space Agency's industrial policy committee is choosing between a variety of solid-fuel stage arrangements, in a bid to replace the Ariane 5 heavy lifter with a less-expensive and more flexible – but equally reliable – alternative for flight from the early 2020s.
Speaking at the Paris air show, ESA director general Jean-Jacques Dordain said the move to solid fuel – rather than the liquid hydrogen and oxygen liquid motors that power Ariane 5 – represents a 10-year technology selection process.
Ariane 6, approved for development by ESA member state space and industry ministers in a five-year budget deal set in November 2012, is a bid to maintain Europe's leading position in 
launches of big telecommunications satellites and other heavy payloads with a modular rocket system that allows components to be built in advance, stored and assembled as needed. Today,
each Ariane 5 must be tailormade for a specific payload.
Separately, Alain Charmeau, chief executive of Ariane 5 and 6 prime contractor Astrium Space Transportation, says his key challenge is to reorganise the European space industry to develop
and deliver Ariane 6 to a target launch price of about €75 million ($100 million) – that is, to be organised to work backwards from a market-competitive price rather than set a launch price
based largely on the cost of manufacturing and development.
NASA, said Charmeau, is the inspiration for this bold bid to reconfigure the European industry.
By setting objectives rather than specifications, NASA is starting to benefit from private sector innovation. SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket is the most visible example.                                     
Cutting costs, adds Charmeau, is going to mean delivering vehicles with fewer people working in the supply chain. "This is the challenge," he says.

ЦитироватьMeanwhile, Ariane 5 is being upgraded to add about a fifth to its payload capacity – to 12t. ESA's industrial policy committee will next week sign contracts to see that work through to 2017, when the so-called Midlife Extension variant is due to fly, says Dordain.
He hopes ESA member states – particularly France and Switzerland, who lead development of Ariane 5 and its payload fairing – will approve "a fairly small amount of money", about €30 million, to engineer a slightly enlarged fairing volume, to accommodate electric propulsion units for satellites inside. These represent a significant advance in satellite control, and reduce the mass of fuel that must be launched to orbit.