Ariane 5 launch vehicle on the launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Image Courtesy of ESA & S. Corvaja.
This week we’re focussing on the latest developments on European launch facilities, and European scientific programmes.
European Space Launches
Last Wednesday the Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana for the last time, taking two satellites into orbit. This marked the completion of its 117th mission during which time it has put 239 payloads into orbit with a 96% success rate; this is despite the first mission on 4th June 1996 failing to reach orbit – interesting to contrast this with the outcome for Virgin Orbit after a similar failure in Cornwall last year. The last satellites were:
- Heinrich-Hertz which is an experimental communications satellite for DLR, the German Space Agency; and
- Syracuse 4B which is a French military communication satellite on behalf of the French Defence Procurement Agency, joining Syracuse 4A in orbit.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has been preparing for the retirement of Ariane-5 for many years, with its successor Ariane-6 due to make its inaugural flight next year. Ariane-6 is expected to offer lower cost, and more frequent, launches. However, this gap between the two rockets operating does leave the European community with a launch issue. This is because they no longer use Russian launch facilities following the war in Ukraine, and operational difficulties with the Vega-C rocket following its failure last year, and it also failed a test firing last week due to anomaly, which means it also will be unlikely to be a viable option until next year.
The solution to the problem appears to be Space-X, with a number of launches being undertaken with the Falcon-9 rocket. The first one, the Euclid astronomy mission, took off at the beginning of this month. Euclid is an ESA mission is designed to explore the composition and evolution of the dark Universe, it has a 1.2 metre telescope operating in visible and near infrared wavelengths and will create a map of the large-scale structure of the Universe across space and time by observing billions of galaxies, across more than a third of the sky.
This gives SpaceX the opportunity to demonstrate itself as the go-to space launch company, and will surely strengthen its position within this aspect of the space industry. It will be interesting to see if ESA stops using SpaceX entirely when Ariane-6 and Vega-C are operational, or will it decide it is advantageous to retain a commercial arrangement with another launch operator in the longer term.
European Programmes
There are strong rumours currently that the UK is about to rejoin the Horizon Europe scientific research programme and the Copernicus Earth Observation (EO) Programme, but not the Euratom nuclear programme. The UK’s participation in all three schemes were agreed in principle within the overall Brexit deal signed in December 2020, but final approval became entangled in post Brexit issues on the Northern Ireland Protocol. The approval of the Windsor Framework, in relation to Northern Ireland, earlier this year seems to have also unlocked this deadlock.
It has been muted that this would happen for some time, but there was disagreement over the amount of funding the UK should contribute. The UK wanted a discount on their agreed contribution as the programme had already begun, and so the science and space communities did not get their hopes up. There have been suggestions of a UK-led international stand-alone research programme, although, the scientific community have constantly said this would struggle to quickly replace the networking and collaboration opportunities that Horizon offers. It is believed that the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak will discuss this with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen this week, and hopefully an announcement will follow soon after.
Such an announcement will be welcomed by both the science and space communities. The last few years have been difficult for many companies and scientists who have needed to make decisions in terms of moving their physical location or giving up on work and research contracts. So, this would be a welcome step forward.
Conclusion
It’s an inescapable fact that space, and science, are international industries. As such everyone achieves more value and success when we work together, rather than when we work alone.
