Europe cancels planned upgrades for Ariane 6 rocket
by Eric Berger from Ars Technica - All content on (#77TXH)
In the two years since it made a largely successful debut, Europe's Ariane 6 rocket has launched eight missions, all of which reached orbit safely.
The large, expendable rocket has a capacity of more than 20 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. And to the credit of European rocket scientists and planners, the Ariane 6 has had a substantially smoother rollout than comparable vehicles in the United States-Blue Origin's New Glenn and United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rockets-both of which have had significant growing pains.
However, even though the Ariane 6 rocket has had a successful debut, its future is clouded by high costs.