Following ESA’s announcement that the maiden flight of Ariane 6 would not occur until 2024, The Exploration Company announced in September 2023 that it had shifted its 40-kilogram Mission Bikini demonstrator to an ISRO PSLV rideshare flight. When the announcement was made, the rideshare mission was expected to be launched in January 2024. By March 2024, the company, through its CEO Hélène Huby, during a Bloomberg interview, revealed that the Bikini demonstrator mission was slated for a mid-June launch. At the time, it was assumed that this meant that the PSLV flight would be occurring in June. However, it’s now clear that this was the first confirmation that the mission was returning to the Ariane 6 payload manifest.

On 14 March 2024, ESA published an updated list of the payloads that would be flown aboard the maiden Ariane 6 flight. The Bikini demonstrator was one of two reentry capsules listed, the other being the ArianeGroup SpaceCase SC-X01. Soon after the announcement, European Spaceflight requested a comment from The Exploration Company confirming whether or not the mission had shifted back to Ariane 6. On 29 March, the company finally responded, stating, “Mission Bikini is currently being re-baslined on Ariane 6 because we want to launch it on the first available launcher.”