Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket is turning into a space policy disaster

Re:Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket is turning into a space policy d... by everybodyknows on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @12:14PM (#35615983)

> Falcon 9 is the most reliable rocket in the world, with the lowest insurance costs ...

Such a reliable source of inconvenient truths, those wretched actuarial accountants.

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Re:Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket is turning into a space policy d... by moffkalast on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @01:04PM (#35616720)

Makes sense, after all they picked the F9 to launch the James Webb. Oh wait...

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Re:Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket is turning into a space policy d... by allenrb on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @01:11PM (#35616813)

A decision which was announced in December of 2015 per https://www.arianespace.com/press-release/esa-and-arianespac...

Of course, not much has changed since then…

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Re:Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket is turning into a space policy d... by nordsieck on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @01:12PM (#35616837)

> Makes sense, after all they picked the F9 to launch the James Webb. Oh wait...

A big part of the reason the JWST flew on Ariane 5 is because it was started in 2003 - long before the first flight of Falcon 9.

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Re:Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket is turning into a space policy d... by panick21_ on Thursday April 20, 2023 @12:03AM (#35636246)

Launching James Webb was part of the European part of helping with financing James Webb. And of course they picked their own rocket to do so.

Ariane 5 was not picked because its the most reliable. Ariane 5, Delta IV and Atlas 5 all had the necessary certification to launch James Webb.

Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy also have this level of certification, but of course they got it after James Webb was already assigned.

Your comment is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how launch vehicle selection works and how NASA certification levels work. Please stop with these uninformed comments.

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