Arianespace to ramp up to full Ariane 6 rocket launch rate in ’26

Reuters

16:02 JST, December 14, 2022

SYDNEY (Reuters) — Europe’s Arianespace expects to launch its first Ariane 6 rocket by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, but it will take until 2026 to ramp up to the full rate of nine to 11 per year, the company’s chief executive said on Nov. 16.

Arianespace, a rival to Elon Musk’s SpaceX that is majority-owned by a joint venture of Airbus and Safran, has secured 29 launches for the delayed Ariane 6 program, 18 of them for an Amazon.com project to beam broadband internet.

Amazon will be a customer for Ariane 6 Block II, a more powerful version of the rocket, Arianespace Chief Executive Stephane Israel said.

“It shows our ability to continuously approve the rocket,” he told Reuters of Block II during a visit to Australia as part of a French business delegation.

Developed at a cost of just under €4 billion ($4.15 billion) and originally set for an inaugural launch in July 2020, Israel said the Ariane 6 project was hit by delays that involved design improvements, COVID-19’s impact on the workforce and suppliers as well as technical issues.

Arianespace is planning four to five Ariane 6 launches in 2024 followed by eight in 2025 before reaching its full planned rate of nine to 11 annually in 2026, he said, though depending on demand that could increase.