Europe plans to launch the first Ariane 6 rocket, its next-generation space launcher, in the fourth quarter of 2023, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Wednesday.
, on behalf of ESA in an effort to reduce launch costs in the face of new private competition from SpaceX and to secure Europe's access to space.Developed at a cost of just under 4 billion euros and originally set for an inaugural launch in July 2020, the project has been hit by a series of delays.
Buoyed by a major order from Amazon for its Project Kuiper constellation earlier this year, ArianeGroup subsidiary Arianespace, which operates the launches, said it had won a total of 29 orders for Ariane 6 and 7 for the smaller Vega C. Arianespace expects some three quarters of Ariane 6 launches to come from the commercial sector, with institutional customers making up 60% of launches for the Italian-developed Vega C.
The company is looking for alternative launch slots for five missions that had been scheduled to lift off on Russian Soyuz rockets, including the Euclid space telescope and the first in a series ofArianespace Chief Executive Stephane Israel told reporters the five launches would be spread between Ariane 6, Vega C and an unspecified number of non-European launches.
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