President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that Europe must again become a global space power, warning that France risked being squeezed out of the global low-orbit satellite constellation market.
Before SpaceX, Ariane Space was pretty dominant in the commercial sattelite launch market. But they completely botched the Ariane 6 design and are now likely still decade away from having a reusable first stage, which is required to remain competitive.
They can be lucky that SpaceX is wasting their resources on a reusable second stage, which will likely never be economical.
Before SpaceX, Ariane Space was pretty dominant in the commercial sattelite launch market. But they completely botched the Ariane 6 design and are now likely still decade away from having a reusable first stage, which is required to remain competitive.
They can be lucky that SpaceX is wasting their resources on a reusable second stage, which will likely never be economical.