In brief

Last year, ESA commissioned a study to explore how Europe could develop a launcher capable of delivering 100 times more payloads to space than we do today.

The Ariane 62 VA262 flight successfully made it to orbit but was unable to make its final burn due to an auxiliary propulsion unit failure that disabled the second stage’s restartable Vinci engine. Despite this failure to achieve a test objective, the next Ariane 6 flight is scheduled for no earlier than this December.

Europe is finally starting to regain its independent access to space, but the downtime between Ariane 5’s retirement and Ariane 6’s first flight caused ESA to book several missions on Falcon 9 as the rocket was the only way the missions could achieve a timely launch. The Vega-C and Ariane 6 rockets also have no reusability features and their costs are not likely to approach Falcon 9 levels, making them less competitive in the world space launch marketplace.

Europe’s space sector has started to respond to SpaceX’s domination of the world space launch market, although progress has been slow and uneven. Last month, ESA selected four companies — ArianeGroup (Arianespace’s parent company), Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), Isar Aerospace, and The Exploration Company — to help develop reusable launch vehicle technology.

Latitude announced Nov. 5 that it hired Aurélie Bressollette as chief executive. She succeeds Stanislas Maximin, co-founder of the company, who moved into the role of executive chairman.

Bressollette comes to Latitude from Rivada Space Networks, where she was vice president of the procurement office for the constellation company. She previously worked for Redwire, OHB System and Airbus.

In an interview, Maximin said he hired Bressollette to handle day-to-day operations of the company as Latitude grew. “As a founder, you’ve got to fire yourself from multiple jobs through the course of building the company,” he said, noting he had previously handed over responsibilities of being chief financial officer and salesman to others at the company.

Latitude, based in the French city of Reims with 140 employees, is developing a small launch vehicle called Zephyr designed to place up to 200 kilograms into low Earth orbit. Maximin said in the interview that the company will start received flight hardware this week for the first Zephyr rocket as it prepares for a series of engine hotfire tests late this year, with a first orbital launch attempt around the end of 2025.

I hope some of these European startups pan out. Arianespace could use some competition.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20891592

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