Say what you like about him, but Elon Musk would have given a cooler press release.
The decision to develop a new launcher system was taken in December 2014, when the member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) held their Council Meeting at Ministerial Level. They decided to opt for an enhancement of the existing generation of Ariane launchers in order to adapt to growing competition and heightened expectations on the world market. The new launcher was to build upon the existing components of Ariane 5. Depending on the configuration, Ariane 6 will be able to transport a payload of up to 11 tons into space, halving the cost of launches compared to Ariane 5. The new re-ignitable Vinci engine for the upper stage of Ariane 6 has been one of the elements tested at the DLR site in Lampoldshausen since 2005, and now the test runs for the new Vulcain 2.1 main stage engine have been added to the site's portfolio.
http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10081/151_read-25584/#/gallery/29560
Love those colors though.. guess it must be 20% faster because of anodized purple alone
ReplyDeleteyoutube.com - Successful first test of the Ariane 6 Vulcain 2.1 engine