SpaceX Wins Two ESA Launches as Europa Reconfigures Rocket Rides

The head of the European Space Agency has confirmed that two ESA scientific spacecraft will be launched with American rockets. The breakdown in Europe-Russia space relations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means that Europe must find new rides on spacecraft that should launch on Russia’s Soyuz rocket, while Europe’s own launchers are in a state of transition. A decision has yet to be made on how two of the European Union’s Galileo navigation satellites will be launched. At the same time, the ESA Council has strongly reaffirmed its support for rescheduling the ExoMars mission without Russian participation, aiming for launch in 2028.

Until February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Europa’s launch vehicle at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, included Vega for small payloads, the mid-range Soyuz-ST through a partnership with Russia, and the heavier Ariane 5.

Upgrades to Vega and Ariane were already in the works. The new Vega-C successfully completed its first launch this summer and Ariane 6 is under development. Only three Ariane 5 are left. However, ESA announced earlier this week that the first Ariane 6 launch has slipped again and is not expected until at least the last quarter of 2023.

Just as this transition is underway, Europe has lost access to Soyuz-ST. The European-Russian partnership known as Starsem was one of the first victims of sanctions imposed on Russia by Europe over Ukraine. Two days after the invasion, then-head of the Russian Space Agency, Dmitry Rogozin, withdrew all Russian citizens from Kourou and suspended Soyuz launches in retaliation for the sanctions.

As a medium-lift launch vehicle, Soyuz was a perfect fit between Vega and Ariane 5. Three ESA science satellites – EarthCARE, Hera and Euclid – and two EU Galileo navigation satellites were planned for Soyuz launches, in addition to a number of commercial launches for other customers .

The Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) mission is a collaborative program between ESA and JAXA. It will study how clouds and aerosols reflect solar radiation back into space and capture infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface. Hera will visit the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid pair to collect additional data after NASA’s DART spacecraft impacted Dimorphos last month as a planetary defense test. DART and Hera are part of the NASA-ESA collaboration to assess asteroid impact and deflection. Euclid is a near-infrared space telescope measuring the acceleration of the universe to better understand dark energy and dark matter.

On October 20, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher reported that ESA’s Council, made up of representatives from the agency’s 22 member states, has agreed that Euclid and Hera will now be launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, Euclid a year 2023 and Hera in 2024. EarthCARE will launch on Europe’s own Vega-C in 2023.

ESA has long had a policy of favoring the use of European-built rockets, with Soyuz being the second choice. Searching for launch services from other countries is rare. Aschbacher noted that this “is a temporary measure that we need to launch with other launch vehicles due to Soyuz unavailability and Ariane 6 delay.”

The European Union also uses Soyuz to launch its Galileo navigation satellite system. Galileo is funded, managed and owned by the EU, with ESA responsible for design, development and deployment. The constellation of 24 operational satellites is similar to the US Global Positioning System.

ESA’s Director of Navigation, Javier Benedicto, said the constellation is now fully operational, but two spare satellites would need to be launched in late 2023 or early 2024, underway to explore non-European options if necessary. A decision is expected in the first half of 2023.

The cost of switching Soyuz is not yet clear, as ending the Starsem partnership could have financial and legal consequences, Aschbacher explained, and ESA does not know if the deposits it paid for the Soyuz launches will be refunded would. But Günter Hasinger, head of ESA’s science program, said the switch to Falcon 9, at least for Euclid, was good for its budget. “I think the decision to move Euclid to Falcon has a positive effect on the science budget because we save quite a bit of time compared to waiting for Ariane 6 to be completed, and also the launch vehicle, I think you have to say cost compared to what we foresaw,” suggesting that Falcon 9 is less expensive.

Another ESA program that has been badly affected by the disruption in European-Russian space cooperation is ExoMars. ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover and Russia’s Kazachok lander were scheduled to launch to Mars on a Russian Proton rocket a month ago. The Russian invasion of Ukraine took place just before the lander/rover combination was scheduled to be shipped to the launch site. It is still in Italy where the rover was built and integrated into the lander.

ESA has ended the ExoMars partnership and is rescheduling the mission for launch in 2028. It needs to build its own lander and will seek funding for it at next month’s ESA Council of Ministers meeting.

Aschbacher said ESA Council members had strongly reaffirmed their support for ExoMars, but the final decision would be made at ministerial level next month. “The science involving the rover Rosalind Franklin in 2028…is still the most advanced and interesting science in the search for life on Mars. It will be the only instrument with a drill that penetrates up to 2 meters deep into the surface and has that ability to search for microbiological life on Mars. No other similar mission is planned. So even if the launch is in 2028… that would still be cutting-edge science.”

However, the entire European-Russian space cooperation has not ended yet. Both participate in the International Space Station along with the United States, Canada and Japan. This partnership has so far survived intact. ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti has just returned from 170 days on the ISS, where she and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev conducted a joint spacewalk on the Russian segment, one of the few instances when non-Russians have worn Russian spacesuits. Last year Russia docked a new science module to the ISS, Nauka, which contains an ESA robotic arm.

Cristoforetti became the first European woman to command the ISS in September and welcomed NASA/SpaceX Crew-4 aboard in October. That crew included Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, the first Russian to fly on a US spacecraft since 2002. In a press conference after landing on Thursday, Cristoforetti described Kikina as “a very good friend and a person I admire and like very much. ”

Rogozin was abruptly replaced by Yuri Borissov as head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency in July. When asked if he had already been contacted by Borisov, Aschbacher said: “Not yet, but I look forward to it whenever it happens.”

Last updated: October 23, 2022 11:45 am ET