After much political wrangling among Germany, France, and Italy, the member governments of the European Space Agency formally decided to move ahead with development of the Ariane 6 rocket in December 2014.
A replacement rocket for the Ariane 5 was needed, European ministers decided, because of cost pressure from commercial upstarts like SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket. With the design of the Ariane 6, they envisioned a modernized version of the previous rocket, optimized for cost. Because Ariane 6 would use a modified Vulcain engine and other components from previous Ariane rockets, it was anticipated that the new rocket would debut in 2020.
European space policy, however, is every bit as political as that of the United States, if not more so. Member nations of Europe make financial allocations to the European Space Agency and expect roughly that amount of money in return in terms of space projects. So the development and production of Ariane 6 was spread across a number of nations under management of a large conglomerate, France-based ArianeGroup.
Parochial politics
This approach combined the worst of the parochial politics that guide NASA funding in the United States with the sluggish activity of a traditional aerospace company accustomed to guaranteed contracts. Naturally, therefore, development of the project has lagged and gone over budget. As of this writing, the public date for the debut launch of Ariane 6 remains "late 2023," but the rocket's first flight will certainly slip into 2024. And its development budget has nearly doubled, to $4.4 billion.
That is a lot of time—nearly a decade—and money for Europe to develop what is essentially a poorer version of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. In the nine years since Europe began development of the Ariane 6 to compete with SpaceX, the Falcon 9 rocket has nearly doubled its payload capacity and become partially reusable, so it is now more capable and costs far less. It has also launched more than 215 times, which is nearly as many rockets as the Ariane program has launched since 1979. Because of this, the Falcon 9 is now extremely reliable and capable of launching on schedule.
So why is Europe developing a rocket that costs more than a Falcon 9 and is a decade late to the party? Because European nations desire independent access to space. This means that European nations can have their own way of putting their most valuable military and scientific satellites into space without having to rely on NASA, Russia, or the whims of American billionaires. This is a justifiable decision in light of geopolitical events that have cut off Europe's access to the Russian Soyuz rocket.
But the Ariane 6 rocket is now failing even at this, its most basic and important task. Politico reports that the European Commission—the executive arm of the European Union—is looking to buy rides on the Falcon 9 rocket due to ongoing delays in readiness of the Ariane 6 rocket.
In a draft request to the European Union, the publication reports, the European Commission plans to ask for a green light to negotiate "an ad-hoc security agreement" with the United States for its rocket companies to "exceptionally launch Galileo satellites." Galileo is a constellation of European satellites that provide global navigation services to Europe similar to the US Global Positioning System, or GPS. These are fairly large satellites, with a mass of about 700 kg, that are located in medium-Earth orbit.
Bad optics
Previously, the European Commission has booked six launches on the Ariane 6 rocket to launch Galileo satellites—two in 2017 and an additional four in 2020—each carrying two satellites. Under the current plan, three of these missions are supposed to launch in 2023. There is no chance of that, of course. The first of these Galileo flights will not take place until after the debut flight of the Ariane 6, so likely not before the second half of 2024 at the earliest.
Apparently, the European Commission has seen enough Ariane 6 delays. The two US rockets capable of picking up the slack from a technical standpoint are SpaceX's Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket. The problem for Europe is that Vulcan is also running well behind its development curve. The vehicle's first launch is now planned for no earlier than this summer, and Vulcan has commitments to the US Department of Defense that will likely preclude taking on new commercial customers for a few years. That leaves only le Falcon Neuf.
For Europe, the optics of this are terrible, of course. Its commissioners created the Ariane 6 to compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. Now, a decade later, officials from the continent are going to have to negotiate with SpaceX for a ride to space for some of their most precious satellites—never mind that the cost is likely to be lower and that the Falcon 9 is the most reliable rocket in the world, with the lowest insurance costs. It's a bitter pill to swallow.