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A comment on Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket powers into space. Parent comment

Re:Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket powers into space by nordsieck on Wednesday July 10, 2024 @06:07AM (#40925380)
> And that’s before we start counting in China

China is... weird.

Most of the rockets they launch are small hypergolic rockets (Long March 2-4) with clear ICBM heritage. Which are multiple generations "behind" Ariane 6.

They do have some more modern cryogenic rockets, but they can't seem to scale those operationally. Presumably it'll happen eventually. But who knows when that'll be.

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Re:Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket powers into space by JumpCrisscross on Wednesday July 10, 2024 @07:11AM (#40925674)
> Most of the rockets they launch are small hypergolic rockets

They’re decently far along on their reusable booster [1], with a methalox engine being developed by a private company [2].

Of course, everything looks cute until it flies. But that programme is arguably ahead of anything ArianeSpace is working on.

[1] https://spacenews.com/china-to-debut-large-reusable-rockets-...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longyun_(rocket_engine)

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