Ariane-5ME (Mid Life Evolution)

[Dave Bowman]

Можно вопрос? в 1993 году мне попалась статья об "Ариан-5". В ней писалось, что на базе этой ракеты может быть создан сверхтяжелый носитель с 5 ЖРД на 2 ст. и 4 РДТТ. Это реально существовавший проект или просто некоторое предположение?

[Salo]

http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=13438

Корпорации "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/

[Космос-3794]

14 декабря на встрече с главами EADS и Safran, президент Саркози заявил что Франция и Германия согласны поддержать программу разработки новой верхней ступени РН Ariane 5 (Midlife Extension), стоимостью  более 2 млрд. евро. Также заявлено о начале финансирования в размере 82.5 млн евро программы исследований  РН следующего поколения. Саркози поддержал идею дополнительных сборов с провайдеров телекоммуникационных услуг для финансирования развития пускового сектора. Ранее предлагалось взимать по 3 миллиона ежегодно с каждого спутника находящегося в европейской орбитальной позиции.

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/101220-sarkozy-satellite-operators-support.html

[Salo]

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

Fri, 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.

[Олигарх]

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

Fri, 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]

А вот интересно, если водородную ступень Ariane-5 адаптировать под Союз-СТ и использовать ее вместо 3-й ступени и Фрегата?
Какая ПН на стандартную ГПО получится?
Мне кажется, основные сложности в создании такой водородной ступени для Союз СТ носят не технический характер, а политический ...

[Salo]

А диаметр в 5,45 м Вас не смущает?

[Большой]

Водородная ступень стоит (пока виртуально) на Союзе-2-3В. См. материалы по МАКС-2011 г.

[Олигарх]

А диаметр в 5,45 м Вас не смущает?

Так я говорю - адаптировать. Может проще идти от водородной ступени Ariane 4, которая наверняка не была такой толстой?

[Salo]

От Ариан-4 сто процентов ничего не осталось.

[Олигарх]

От Ариан-4 сто процентов ничего не осталось.

Эта ветка, которую инициировал пан Salo, называется
Ariane-5ME (Mid Life Evolution).

Так вот, Союз с 3-й водородной ступенью - это неплохой временный вариант  Ariane-5ME (Mid Life Evolution)
Я думаю, что вероятность этого варианта ненулевая ...
 Причем эта вероятность существенно выше, если плясать от водородных ступеней Ariane 4/5, чем от КРБ 12/15.
Тут сталкивается много интересов и я не уверен, что это нужно российской космонавтике.
Но технические аспекты хотелось бы прояснить ...

[Salo]

Эта ветка касается конкретной модификации Ariane. Союз логично обсуждать в ветке о Союзе в Куру.

[Salo]

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/111028-germany-reaffirms-commitment-ariane.html

Fri, 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.

[Salo]

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/asd/2011/10/31/10.xml&headline=DLR:%20Upgrade%20Ariane%205%20Before%20Making%20Successor

DLR: 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.

[Salo]

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/111208-france-undecided-ariane5.html

Thu, 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."

[Salo]

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/111214-dlr-chief-battles-iss-ariane.html

Wed, 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."

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http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/asd/2012/01/23/02.xml&headline=Ariane%205%20Upgrade%20Could%20End%20Subsidies

Ariane 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."

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http://www.spacenews.com/policy/120209-france-germany-resolve-ariane5-differences.html

Thu, 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.

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http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1203/22legall/index2.html

Question: 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
]

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ESA to Compete Next-Gen Launcher Ahead of Budget Talks

Since 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."

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ESA Expresses Interest in NASA Facility To Test Ariane 5 Upgrade

WASHINGTON — 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.

http://www.spacenews.com/launch/120406-esa-nasa-test-ariane-upgrade.html



The NASA Plum Brook facility's B-2 test chamber — used in 1998 for propulsion testing of a Delta 3 upper stage. Credit: NASA photo