The agency running the EU’s weather satellites said it would prefer to pay Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch one of its satellites instead of using Europe’s Ariane 6 space rocket. The European Space Agency’s director general called the move “surprising.”

9 comments

1. Europe smarts as Elon Musk’s SpaceX wins key satellite deal

   Launching a weather satellite with SpaceX and not Ariane 6 is a “surprising” decision, said Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency.

   As a reminder, in November 2023, the 22 member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) reached an agreement to provide an annual subsidy to #EUMETSAT to finance its economic equilibrium aswell as stimulus programme.

2. I would also pick space X cause Elon Musk

3. It’s probably cheaper

4. Better have and use own alternative to a china-bought drug addict’s product

5. “European Space Agency (ESA) director of space transportation Toni Tolker-Nielsen thinks that SpaceX’s Starship will neither be a game changer nor a real competitor to its Ariane 6 satellite launcher immediately.”

   Lmao, and they end up losing to Falcon 9 already.

6. Of course, if you’re running an agency like this, you’re trying to do the most you can with your budget. Going with SpaceX

   1) basically guarantees your payload will launch on time
   2) is significantly cheaper.

   How is that surprising? Maybe the EU should subsidize the Ariane program even more so it’s competitive?

7. They probably don’t feel that the cost, lack of maturity of the launcher and time until launch availability is worth it.

   So they go with SpaceX this time around, not optimal for Ariane but not end of the world.

8. B-but something something Musk bad.

9. Mm n e