New Mars Forums

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 17,414

Re: Soyuz at Kouru - How much more mass to LEo?

For Mars_B4_Moon ... Thanks for finding and posting these updates on the possibility ESA might be willing to contract with SpaceX for launches, ** and ** that SpaceX might be willing to consider ESA as a customer.

NASA ** must ** be a difficult customer.  I get the impression (without any data to work with) that ESA might be even more difficult to deal with.  Any insights you can glean from your study of the Internet flows would be interesting (to me for sure!).

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,385

Re: Soyuz at Kouru - How much more mass to LEo?

The Vega Rocket has also failed in Dec 2022 

Jointly developed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the European Space Agency (ESA) the propulsion module uses a Ukrainian-built RD-843, RD-868P, rocket engine liquid-fuel rocket burning pressure-fed UDMH and nitrogen tetroxide as propellant, fourth stage, currently made in Ukraine, Vega-C suffered a launch failure due to an anomaly with the Zefiro 40 second stage.

Blamed for Vega-C Rocket Failure, Ukraine Calls Investigation 'Premature'
https://news.yahoo.com/blamed-vega-c-ro … 00763.html

NASA Requests Funding for ExoMars While Warning MSR Costs May Grow
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa … -may-grow/

NASA’s FY2024 budget request includes a record-breaking $8.26 billion for science. The largest component is planetary science that includes the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return mission to bring samples now being collected by the Perseverance rover back to Earth. The request includes almost $1 billion for MSR, but comes with a warning that costs may grow and it may need to be descoped or other science missions cut. NASA also is requesting money to help ESA finish the ExoMars mission after it severed its partnership with Russia.

Maybe ESA / France should ask Musk to launch from Guiana