By Joanna Plucinska and Tim Hepher
BERLIN (Reuters) -Europe’s new Ariane 6 satellite launcher will perform a long-awaited inaugural flight on July 9, the head of the European Space Agency said at the Berlin Airshow on Wednesday.
The delayed debut comes a year after its predecessor, Ariane 5, was retired, leaving Europe without an independent orbit for its satellites after setbacks with a smaller Italian alternative and the severing of ties with Russia over Ukraine.
The plan is for the first commercial launch of the Ariane 6 to take place before the end of the year, Director General Josef Aschbacher told reporters.
In November, the 22-nation agency set a tentative launch window of mid-June to the end of July this year, subject to testing.
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ESA countries agreed in 2014 to develop Ariane 6 in response to increasing competition in the commercial launch market, but its arrival, originally scheduled for 2020, has been repeatedly postponed.
Aschbacher told Reuters that companies such as Amazon had already expressed interest in working with the project, along with a hundred other companies and organizations. The main advantage of the launch vehicle was its ability to reignite once launched.
“For example, it can really place satellites of a constellation in different orbital planes, as is increasingly needed today,” Aschbacher said.
The launch vehicle was developed by ArianeGroup, a joint venture between Airbus and Safran, to better compete with rivals including Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“Now we have SpaceX, which is launched very often and with great success, but Ariane 6 will certainly be an alternative in the commercial landscape, and this is exactly what we want to see,” Aschbacher told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
Even as Ariane 6 makes its long-awaited debut, European countries are thinking about ways to be more competitive in the next generation of launch vehicles.
ESA currently designs and buys launch vehicles, but wants to move towards a leaner system for purchasing services to emulate SpaceX’s growth.
Such projects would start with a new generation of mini launchers, but could set the tone for longer-term replacements of Europe’s heavier Ariane 6 and Vega C, which will remain Europe’s only independent options for large payloads for years to come.
“I would like to be the stable anchor customer that I can promise to the companies that I will buy a certain number of launches in the future,” Aschbacher said.
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Tim HepherWriting by Madeline Chambers and Joanna PlucinskaEditing by Thomas Seythal and Sriraj Kalluvila)
