Will Europe one day regain its position as world leader in the space market? The director general of the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) Philippe Baptiste was optimistic but realistic on the set of BFM Business, just hours after the postponement of the last flight of the Ariane 5 rocket that was scheduled to take place on Tuesday from Kourou in French Guiana. “He’s an incredible pitcher, he recalled. His great strength is his reliability with 117 launches, 98% success. Its weakness is the time it took us to pass to the next generation, probably too late.
An observation that led the head of CNES to highlight the change in trend that has occurred in the space market in recent decades, recognizing a delay in the European aeronautical industry. “Now we are in a challenging position when we were dominant in the space market,” he explained. A year ago, we still had 3 launchers to guarantee our access to space. The Russian launcher carried out most of our launches and we no longer know how to launch our satellites today.”
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Although he will not be able to give a definitive schedule for the arrival of Ariane 6 for a few months, Philippe Baptiste indicates that the project has already entered its final phase, that of combined tests. “Today, Ariane 6 is on the market, just look at its order book,” he underlines. No Ariane launcher has started their career with as full an order book as Ariane 6. Today we are the only credible challengers to Space X.”
To make up for this delay, the direct general president of CNES mentions three lines of work. Firstly, a greater number of entrepreneurs and investors “who come and invest their capital to develop new markets” like Elon Musk on the other side of the Atlantic. Europe must also significantly increase its level of funding compared to the United States, since the launcher market is “largely subsidized by the States.” Finally, the role of space agencies must evolve towards the co-development of projects.
Source: BFM TV
