Concerned About SpaceX, France to Accelerate Reusable Rocket Plans
upstart writes:
Concerned about SpaceX, France to accelerate reusable rocket plans:
On Monday French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced a plan for Europe to compete more effectively with SpaceX by developing a reusable rocket on a more rapid timeline.
"For the first time Europe ... will have access to a reusable launcher," Le Maire said, according to Reuters. "In other words, we will have our SpaceX, we will have our Falcon 9. We will make up for a bad strategic choice made 10 years ago."
The new plan calls for the large, France-based rocket firm ArianeGroup to develop a new small-lift rocket called Maia by the year 2026. This is four years ahead of a timeline previously set by the European Space Agency for the development of a significantly larger, reusable rocket.
Although the technical details are sparse, Maia will not be Europe's "Falcon 9." It will have a lift capacity of up to 1 metric ton to low Earth orbit and be powered by a reusable Prometheus rocket engine, which is fueled by methane and liquid oxygen. This engine, which remains in the preliminary stages of development, has a thrust comparable to a single Merlin 1D rocket engine, which powers SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. But since there are nine engines on the SpaceX rocket, it can lift more than 15 times as much as the proposed Maia in fully reusable mode.
A day late and a dollar short.
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