"Bruno Le Maire, the former French finance minister, said in 2021 that the Ariane 6 was a "bad strategic choice." More recently, in October of last year, the head of ESA said the continent's space industry must "catch up" with international competitors like SpaceX and develop a reusable launcher "relatively fast." In its submission to ESA's BEST! initiative, ArianeGroup proposes replacing the Ariane 6 rocket's solid-fueled side boosters with new liquid-fueled boosters."
"ArianeGroup's proposal was first reported by European Spaceflight, which said the concept presented to ESA is similar to an ArianeGroup proposal from 2022, when the company described the liquid reusable boosters as a "plug-and-play" alternative to Ariane 6's solid-fueled boosters, helping reduce operating costs and increase launch rates. The details of ArianeGroup's newest proposal have not been published, but the concept was summarized in a paper presented at the European Conference for Aeronautics and Space Sciences in 2025."
ArianeGroup has proposed substituting Ariane 6's solid-fueled side boosters with liquid-fueled, partially reusable boosters developed by MaiaSpace, a French ArianeGroup subsidiary. MaiaSpace would adapt its methane-fueled Maia booster for integration with Ariane 6 to reduce operating costs and enable higher launch rates. The concept was presented to ESA's BEST! initiative and summarized at a 2025 aerospace conference. ESA also contracted Isar Aerospace to study a separate reusable first-stage demonstrator and asked both companies to assess feasibility, outline technology and systems plans, and estimate costs for a major flight demonstration. MaiaSpace's vehicle is not expected to fly before 2027.
Read at Ars Technica
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