European Space Agency - ESA reposted this
We have made history for Europe. #Ariane6
Almost 25 (!) years ago, I had the opportunity to contribute as a still fairly young graduate to the conception of the Vinci expander cycle engine. A once- in-a-lifetime opportunity for a rocket propulsion engineer to dimension and design a totally new rocket engine from scratch, starting with an empty sheet of paper. I am grateful and proud to have worked hard over a long period of time with a team of great engineers from all across Europe to conceive the basic design of this upper stage engine which initially was intended to fly on Ariane 5. Today, not all members of that team are still alive and could witnessed the final outcome of that work nearly 25 years later- Europe will have to dramatically speed up if our launcher industry shall keep up with Space-X and the like....! I salute all the other veterans of the early days of Vinci and ESC-B working groups!
Congratulations! First launches are not easy, and then on first try - impressive! 🚀
An incredible achievement for Europe👏 The whole team of Exolaunch extends our huge gratitude to European Space Agency - ESA and #Ariane6 for this historic ride to space! 🚀
Flawless launch to Space 🚀 Ariane is back and UARX Space is TRL 9 Thank you European Space Agency - ESA and ARIANESPACE
Congratulations to European Space Agency - ESA, CNES, ARIANESPACE, ArianeGroup and all the actors and countries involved in this european success! 🥂
I want to celebrate this, but the lack of reusability is a big issue for me.
VP Operations at European Space Imaging GmbH
2wVery nice, congratulations on a mostly successful 1st launch! Can we now all swallow our national pride and hubris and build a reusable launcher, which may fly in 15 years, so that by 2040 we only have a 25 years technology gap to Space X? ‘’Reusability is a dream” “You shouldn’t be trying to sell things that are unrealistic” Richard Bowles of Arianespace at a 2013 satellite conference Singapore https://x.com/stormsurgemedia/status/1675932589930979351 So here we are in 2024. SpaceX is launching for well below 50 mio $ a pop every second day or so, and aims for 5 mio $ per flight for a 10 times lager launcher, flying multiple times per day. Laugh again?