European astronauts have been in space before, but only with Russian or American capsules. Although Europe ranks third in the world after the USA and China when it comes to spending on space travel, it has never sent people into space with its own European rocket. A gap in Europe’s space travel. So far anyway – now it is supposed to be closed.
The aerospace company Ariane Group, a joint venture between Airbus and the French technology group Safran, has presented concrete plans for how astronauts could conquer space with European rockets. The concept, dubbed Susie (Smart Upper Stage for Innovative Exploration), recently unveiled at an International Space Congress (IAC) in Paris, is essentially a completely new rocket tip designed to accommodate up to five astronauts and/or cargo.
What makes it special is that it would be a reusable stage. The Ariane Group and Europe would thus take up the recycling idea pursued by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk at his space company SpaceX. Susie could even “pave the way for fully reusable European launch vehicles,” the release said, though without giving a specific date.
Europe’s space agency ESA has been considering its own manned space flight for some time. Last but not least, the break with Russia on space projects as a result of Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine accelerated the discussion. It is said that autonomous access to space for Europeans is of great importance.
In fact, however, the Susie concept with a manned ESA capsule is a revival of an old idea in a completely new packaging. Because Europe once wanted to develop the space glider Hermes. He was scheduled to lift off from the spaceport in French Guyana on top of an Ariane 5 rocket. A kind of space shuttle of the Europeans. After years of back and forth, the Hermes project was buried 30 years ago, mainly because of the high costs.
As a result, Europe has had to keep looking for ride-sharing opportunities and, more recently, has had to watch the space company SpaceX becoming the pacesetter in the industry, including in manned spaceflight. The reusable rocket upper stage for people and/or cargo presented by the Ariane Group in Paris still only exists on paper and in computer animations.
The stage could be operational from around 2030, explains a spokesman. No information has yet been given about the costs. But they should be in the billions, according to the industry. The Ariane Group, as a key company for Europe’s construction of large launch vehicles, cleverly presented the proposal in the run-up to the so-called ESA Council of Ministers in November. There, politicians decide in which projects to invest. France and Germany are the largest ESA contributors.
The Austrian ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher has already spoken out in favor of entering manned space flight with one’s own vehicle. But manned space travel costs billions, and there are other expensive large-scale European projects in space, such as building a bug-proof fleet of communications satellites.
Europe has already invested billions in autonomous access to space with the new Ariane 6 launch vehicle. After several delays, it is now scheduled to take off for the first time in 2023.
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Source: WORLD
The reusable Susie stage could then be mounted at its peak in the next decade. As the industry says, there would have to be a few security measures on Ariane 6 before it could transport people at all.
The Susie capsule would be designed in such a way that it could even be used for a successor generation of Ariane 6, i.e. a kind of modular design. The reusable capsule upper stage would be 12 meters long, five meters in diameter and weigh 25 tons. The relatively large cargo hold of 40 cubic meters is remarkable.
The range of uses for manned or fully automated missions would be very diverse. The release of satellites, the supply of space stations with fuel or food or even as a space taxi for the exchange of crews is mentioned. Susie could also be used to collect satellites at the end of their lives – and transport payloads weighing more than seven tons back to Earth.
In contrast to all other modern space capsules (Boeing’s Starliner, SpaceX-Elon Musk’s Crew Dragon, Lockheed Martin’s Orion), the first manned ESA capsule is not supposed to float down on parachutes. Rather, recoil rockets are intended to slow down re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere and then touch down gently on a landing pad.
This rocket braking idea with landing on the ground and not in the sea was originally planned by Elon Musk for his Dragon capsule, but then rejected after Nasa’s security concerns. His new reusable mega-rocket upper stage Starship, which may start its first test flight later this year and will one day transport up to 100 astronauts, is also supposed to land without parachutes.
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