ESA Aerospace Teams Up To Take on SpaceX
Airbus Group and Safran To Join Forces in Launcher Activities
Both companies express their determination to continue to play a leading role in the space launcher business as well as to safeguard Europe’s autonomous and reliable access to space. This year, ESA and its Member Nations are expected to take far-reaching decisions on current and next generation launchers. “It’s all about enhancing the competitiveness of our space launcher business going forward.
Good. If Airbus and Safran can significantly reduce costs and become competitive with SpaceX’s costs, that will put a lot more pressure on other companies to do the same.
Yes. Elon Musk’s companies are the rare ones that actively seek to motivate their own competition for the good of the entire industry.
A perfect example of that is his recent opening up of Tesla’s patents.
I suspect that this has a lot to do with his desire to expand infrastructure for electric cars (i.e. Tesla Supercharger stations). If all electric cars use the same charging interface, this would be a good thing for consumers and the electric car industry.
Bingo! We have a winner!
Problem is they can’t. All this combine seems to want to do is modestly speed up current plans for Ariane 5 and 6. There’s no hint that they’re looking seriously at how to get to a reusability architecture. Their great plan is to build another throw-away rocket that wouldn’t be competitive with SpaceX even if was flying today, never mind in seven or eight years. Teaming up is often a good idea, but in this case it seems a little like Peter Dinklage and Vern Troyer teaming up to take on the WWE champ. It might be entertaining, but it won’t be competitive.
Well, I’ll assume there’s much that they haven’t told you and me. Given that they know the effect that SpaceX is having and will likely have on the industry and competition, I’ll willing to be they’re looking at more than just one or two options for becoming more competitive. No one is in a position to write off their effort yet, especially as they haven’t layer out all of their plans to the public.
Beg to differ. The current thrashing about in Europe is evidence they do not know “the effect SpaceX is having on the industry and competition.” Up until quite recently, Arianespace was arrogantly insisting SpaceX would have no real effect on them at all, especially the reusability initiatives, which were dismissed as fantasy. Now they seem to have woken up and smelled the coffee and the scent has panicked them. They are indeed looking at more options after long pretending Ariane 5ME and an all-solids Ariane 6 were on rails. Suddenly we hear of liquid-fueled Ariane 6 alternatives that might come in two distinct configurations. I’m sure these will not be the last Ariane 6 alternative flags to be run up the pole to see if anyone salutes. These people obviously have no idea what they’re about and are scrambling furiously to provide some kind of plausible impression of control. It isn’t working.