Ariane 6: Where does it come from, and can it compete?
Recent Ariane 6 concept. Credit: CNES The launch vehicle market is rapidly evolving. While Europe has been in a comfortable position over the past 20 years, with Ariane 4 and later 5 dominating the commercial launch market, this has been changing over the past few years. First the Russian Proton rocket took the market by storm, capturing a large part of the market, now emerging launch vehicles from China, India and new commercial ventures like SpaceX are posing a threat to Europe's lead in the commercial market. While Ariane 5 has so far had little trouble keeping up with Proton, this has always required a significant amount of government subsidies. Currently, an Ariane 5 costs about €150 millions for 10 tons to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit, and receives on average €120 million in subsidies per year. For comparison, a Proton costs less than €80 million per launch with a payload of 6.5 tons. In addition to this, Ariane 5 launches two satellites at a time, one big one (in the...