A few days ago, ESA’s Council Meeting was held in Luxembourg. Representatives of the member countries established the guidelines for the operations in the coming years. The discussion focused mainly on the evolution of the rockets to get to the Ariane 6 and Vega-C, essential to remain competitive in the satellite launch market. It’s more and more important for the growing requests but the competition is getting tougher and tougher. The Council also confirmed the ExoMars mission, the collaboration in the management of the International Space Station and opened to the possibility of new space missions in collaboration with other space agencies.

In many ways, this Council Meeting is a kind of continuation of the one held in 2012. Two years ago a compromise between Germany and France led to the decision to still develop the Ariane 5 rocket and then gradually move to the new Ariane 6. A few days ago the Council spoke a lot about the latter in close relation with the development of the Vega rocket, exploring possible synergies.

So far, ESA used the Ariane 5 or the Soyuz rockets and in recent years started using the new Vega rocket for satellite launches for third-parties. The different characteristics of the various launchers allow a good versatility in the launches but it was deemed insufficient to ensure their optimal management.

The problem is also economical in a market that’s very rich but with a competition that expanded. Some Russian rockets allow to have launches at relatively cheap prices – although they still cost many millions of Euros for a launch – but aren’t always very reliable. In recent years, especially SpaceX is influencing changes with a rapid evolution of its Falcon launchers and a great efficiency that are leading to significant cost reductions.

For this reason a synergy is under study between the new rockets Ariane 6, the successor of Ariane 5, and the Vega-C, the new version of Vega that will be more powerful and therefore able to launch up to two tons of cargo. This means that it will be able to launch more small satellites or a bigger satellite. The possibility of the Vega rocket to place satellites in different orbits even in the same launch will make its new version even more versatile and therefore competitive. Ariane 6 and Vega-C will use the same solid propellant P120 motors for the first stage and for the Ariane 6 booster.

Airbus and Safran, two companies that are Arianespace shareholders, proposed different configurations for the Ariane 6 rocket in June 2014 but in September, after a meeting with representatives of ESA and the space agencies of Germany and France, came the proposal approved in recent days.

Airbus and Safran have just announced a merger that will create a company that will be called Airbus Safran Launchers. This new company wants to take control of Arianespace and work to the most efficient development of the Ariane 6 rocket.

There are good news about the ExoMars mission too. Questions arose about the availability of the budget but the meeting established an additional contributions to send two landers and rovers in cooperation with the Russian space agency. The lander Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM), called Schiaparelli, is expected to be launched in 2016.

Aerospace industries are important in various European countries and employ, directly or indirectly, several thousand people. ESA wants to be at the forefront in these fields to enable Europe to obtain real progress incrementing knowledge but also wealth.

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