Talk:Ariane 6

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MTG-S1

I'm afraid Gunter's Space Page is probably wrong about MTG-S1 being launched with Ariane-6. That is a possibility, but no contract has been signed. EUMETSAT and ESA are reportedly quite reluctant to be the first GTO launch with Ariane-6 and there are still uncertainties in the timeplan, so it's quite possible that MTG-S1 will launch with Elon Musk instead. I don't have written sources for this (just personal communication) so it's hard to correct this in the article. --Gerrit CUTEDH 13:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actual photograph of Ariane 6

This vehicle is now fully developed and pictures on ESA website. the main photograph on the article should be replaced with an actual photo 73.210.30.217 (talk) 22:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Partial Failure or Success

It seems like Ariane 6 won't be able to deorbit. Given that it still has two payloads that require deployment after deorbit, that means that the launch is a partial failure (See Falcon 9 v1.0 Flight 4). Redacted II (talk) 21:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

please update ref 5 as my internet keeps cutting out this morning.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/07/07/esa-makes-final-preparations-for-its-inaugural-ariane-6-launch/
 :GSMC(Chief Mike) Kouklis U.S.NAVY Ret. ⛮🇺🇸 / 🇵🇭🌴⍨talk 00:10, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The first and second stage operated as expected and most of the satellites were launched. The only anomaly was that the second stage didn't re-light properly for a second positioning burn. This may all be premature too. Reliable sources state that it's "not immediately clear whether controllers would be able to fix the APU problem." RickyCourtney (talk) 00:13, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, all 9 small satellites successfully deployed, and only 2 reentry capsules to test heat shields failed to deploy, which ESA itself won't recover if deployed as it's not worth sending boats there (in the spaceflightnow link above). The purpose of this rocket is to launch satellites, not reentry capsules. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 00:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And? They still failed to deploy some of the payloads on the correct trajectory. By precedent, that's an automatic partial failure.
Falcon 9 Flight 4, Firefly flights 2 and 4, and Delta IV Heavy flight 1 are all partial failures, and all had a similar outcome. Redacted II (talk) 01:22, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Falcon 9 flight 4 failed to deliver a satellite to "being placed in the correct orbit", Firefly flight 2 failed to deliver satellites to its "intended final deployment orbit", Firefly flight 4 failed to deliver satellites to its "planned target orbit", Delta IV Heavy flight 1 failed to deliver satellites as it reached "lower orbit than planned".
All of them failed to place satellites, while Ariane 6 failed to send down capsules. All of them failed to reach intended orbit, while Ariane 6 failed to reach trajectory for a controlled reentry. The closest precedent I can think of is Starship flight 3, which spun out of control during reentry due to venting prior to reentry, primarily causing loss of vehicle during reentry, which was a success according to reliable sources and consensus. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:48, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And? They failed to deploy some of the payloads, due to an issue with the rocket. Thats a partial failure. Redacted II (talk) 12:20, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Starship flight 3 failed to reenter due to an issue with the rocket related to reentry trajectory. That's a success, and not without reason either, since success is defined as the launch success of the launch vehicle. I argue that this a much closer analog, even if not strictly "payload". Because the type of payload matters, the other flights only sent orbital payload, this one sent orbital payload successfully, and reentry payload unsuccessfully. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 21:51, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That’s not true, Arianespace have repeatedly insisted that the launch vehicle was to eventually be human rated. That means re-entry capsules, for which the undeployed payloads were necessary demonstrators to develop the capability Anonymous86425 (talk) 06:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Everything I can find has them saying it could be made human-capable with modifications. The two re-entry capsules also weren't full scale. They were literally experiments that ESA pre-flight materials appear to exclude from being mission payloads. Rob.au (talk) 09:52, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The re-entry capsules, Nyx Bikini and SpaceCase SC-X01, are considered mission payloads according to all sources that I could find. They are listed under "ridesharing payloads" along with the other missions:
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Ariane/ESA_selects_payloads_for_Ariane_6_first_flight
Other material from the ESA also refers to the re-entry capsules as payloads (bolded for emphasis):
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Ariane/Flying_first_on_Ariane_6

There's a smart-farming satellite, a radio beacon demonstrator, experiments that will remain attached to the rocket's payload ‘adaptor’ and even capsules destined to reenter Earth’s atmosphere to test new materials – Ariane 6’s first flight will be packed with technology as its first payloads are sent on their way into space.

-Mysterius (talk) 20:50, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, it is very clear that the Ariane 6 flight is not going to be salvaged (they said so during their official webcast). Redacted II (talk) 01:24, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I mean the second stage didn’t perform as expected and couldn’t deploy all payloads to the mission defined parameters as a result. That’s why the original post referenced CRS-1, despite losing an engine it still performed its primary mission of ISS resupply. Though it did mean the secondary payload did not reach the necessary orbit, resulting in a partial failure for the mission.
From the Press Conference following the launch coverage, they said they already passivated the upper stage, meaning it can’t do the burn even if the APU were fixed. Anonymous86425 (talk) 01:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(Arranging it like this for future convenience, as well as commonality with similar debates on SpaceX Starship)
Partial Failure. The upper stage failed to deliver two payloads to the correct orbit. That makes it a partial failure, per established precedent from Falcon 9 Flight 4, Firefly flights 2 and 4, and Delta IV Heavy flight 1.
Had that deorbit burn not been mission critical, then this would be a clear success. But it was mission critical. Redacted II (talk) 01:35, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Firefly flights 2 and 4 and Delta IV Heavy flight 1 don't appear to be good analogues - from their respective Wikipedia articles, it appears they did not deliver any of their payloads to their intended orbits. Falcon 9 Flight 4 interestingly is shown differently on different pages. List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches (2010–2019) splits it into two missions, describing one (CRS-1) as a Success and the other (Orbcomm-OG2) as a Partial Failure. SpaceX CRS-1 describes the launch as a Partial Success and expands this as "Success for primary payload. Failure for secondary payload". The argument of precedent does not hold, because the only example that is reasonably comparable has a different treatment on Wikipedia (ie. it is not written up as an overall Partial Failure).
In the case of VA262, pre-launch materials ("Ariane 6 launch: how to watch and what to look out for". European Space Agency. 4 July 2024.) describe three phases: 1. From ground to orbit, 2. Upper stage reignition and satellite deployment, and 3. Tech demos, deorbiting and capsule separation. Phase 2's description concludes with "At this point, Ariane 6 has done its job, reigniting its upper stage and deploying its eight satellite missions and activating all onboard experiments". In the post-launch press conference they describe this as having demonstrated the launch capability intended to replace Ariane 5 as a launch services vehicle. As far as I can tell, all mission elements of Phases 1 & 2 were a success (which they stated in their press conference allows them to proceed with their intended future launch campaigns), and it's the new technology demonstration elements in Phase 3 that failed. De-orbiting is an objective, but not a mission-critical one (and it's much less mission-critical than Orbcomm-OG2 was). It would seem precedent/consistency would lead to breaking out these components here and labelling them accordingly. Rob.au (talk) 09:40, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"(ie. it is not written up as an overall Partial Failure)."
Check the infobox. Its recorded as Partial Failure there.
"De-orbiting is an objective, but not a mission-critical one"
Yes it was. Failure to deorbit left two reentry demos stranded over five hundred kilometers above the earth. Redacted II (talk) 12:22, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The launch was a success. The mission was mostly successful. However, two of the payloads failed to deploy due to the upper stage anomaly.
Prior to the launch, ArianeGroup highlighted the ability to relight the upper stage engine multiple times as a key innovation of Ariane 6:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/07/07/esa-makes-final-preparations-for-its-inaugural-ariane-6-launch/

We have made a lot of innovations between Ariane 6 and Ariane 5. Innovation in particular on the upper stage of the launcher with two, brand new propulsion systems: the re-ignitable Vinci engine and also an auxiliary power unit. This gives Ariane 6 much broader mission capability compared to the Ariane 5, but of course, since we introduced an innovative system, we met some difficulties.

— Franck Huiban, Head of Civil Program at ArianeGroup
Personally I would rather label such situations "partial successes" rather than "partial failures", though that's a semantic argument (glass half full versus half empty) and one that applies to all launches, not just this one. -Mysterius (talk) 03:45, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It’s interesting how interpretations can vary so much. For me, “partial failure” would suggest a more successful mission than “partial success” Anonymous86425 (talk) 04:17, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Partial success doesn't exist in the infobox (regardless, they mean the same thing) Redacted II (talk) 12:23, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's interesting that Starship's fight 3 is counted as a success despite failing an engine relight and failing its planned reentry. Meanwhile Ariane 6 also failed at an engine relight and failed its planneed reentry, but editors quickly concluded that it was a partial failure. Agile Jello (talk) 07:52, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Starship's engine relight wasn't mission critical (they could, and did, attempt reentry regardless).
Ariane 6's failed engine relight left two payloads in the incorrect (and unusable) orbit. Redacted II (talk) 12:24, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
relight of a raptor engine in space was mentioned prior to the mission as a mission objective Jomads (talk) 20:42, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference.
The IFT-3 mission was to make it to entry.
The raptor relight was irrelevant towards that.
Ariane 6's failed deorbit prevents the capsules from fulfilling their missions. Thus, partial failure. Redacted II (talk) 21:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the link i provided clearly states the first reignition of a raptor in space as an objective alongside reentry Jomads (talk) 21:32, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, it wasn't a mission-critical burn. The mission could (and did) proceed without it.
Ariane 6's failed burn prevented the mission from continuing. Redacted II (talk) 22:24, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it was a mission objective, and it wasn't done Jomads (talk) 22:29, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This was discussed endlessly in the IFT-3 RfC.
Launch success is the delivering of the payload to the correct orbit. This is what is tracked in the infobox.
Mission success is completing the mission.
IFT-3 achieved launch success, Ariane 6 did not. Redacted II (talk) 22:50, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree that launch success is the delivering of the payload to the correct *orbit*, not reentry. Ariane 6 achieved launch success. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 17:16, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The correct orbit for the reentry capsules would intersect the atmosphere. Redacted II (talk) 17:22, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is a trajectory, not an orbit. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 17:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And? For the intents of launch v.s failure, they are the same thing (this was discussed during IFT-3). Redacted II (talk) 17:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I am reading IFT-3 RfC correctly, it was specifically discussing the goal of transatmospheric *orbit* which ended up being "suborbital with orbital energy" due to an anomaly. I don't really see discussions on reentry trajectory there, correct me if I'm wrong. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 18:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The classification for Starship test launches is by no means decided precedent. If you would like to argue over it, do it on the Starship page. For payload carrying missions, the precedent is clear. Anything short of deploying all payloads to the mission defined trajectories is an automatic partial failure. The fact no other rocket has failed to deploy re-entry demonstrators does not absolve this mission of the requirement. 97.116.41.49 (talk) 04:21, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
List as partial failure – For Ariane 6 to do the missions planned, it must to be able to conduct multiple burns of its upper stage. It needed to demonstrate that ability in this test, and failed to do so. So while the mission was mostly successful, it failed one critical test objective. That in my mind is grounds to list this as a partial failure. The rest of these Starship related “other stuff exists” arguments aren’t helpful or relevant. RickyCourtney (talk) 06:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I dont disagree that Ariane 6 is a partial failure. I just think it's a glaring inconsistency by Wikipedia to list Ariane 6 as a partial failure while Starship fight 3 is a success, when they failed at almost exactly the same thing (failing an engine relight, and failing the planned reentry). The bias of same editors in favor of SpaceX is very evident. Agile Jello (talk) 09:16, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't participate in IFT-3 RfC, whether or not there is bias, it is clear to me that Ariane 6 should be treated equally. Wikipedia:Other stuff exists doesn't apply here, as the topic and the timing and the participants of this RfC are too closely related to IFT-3 RfC, subjecting it to the same local consensus. If IFT-3 RfC is successfully relitigated in the future, then we can return here again, but I doubt it will happen. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:37, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Re-litigating seemingly settled matters happens all the time on Wikipedia. If you don't think the IFT-3 RfC was properly handled, you are welcome to open another. RickyCourtney (talk) 17:58, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think IFT-3 RfC was properly handled, even if not perfectly handled, and so I don't think it is likely that it will be relitigated in the near future. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 19:36, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The difference has been explained, but I'll explain it again.
Its not that Ariane 6's relight failed that makes it a partial failure. Its that the failure of the planned relight prevented payload deployment.
If Starship had those two capsules onboard (and was originally in orbit), then it would have been a partial failure. But it didn't. Redacted II (talk) 12:29, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Partial Success It reached orbital velocity, deployed orbital payloads sucessfully, reignited and performed the first disposal trajectory burn but then failed the 3rd of 3 orbital burns to be put into a disposal trajectory with the re-entry payloads not deployed. The goal of the 2nd part of the mission was to stress test the reignition system and it did that. Chinese rockets arent even capable of disposal trajectory burns while the SpaceX launches which failed their reentry trajectory burns were marked as partial success. WatcherZero (talk) 12:43, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"SpaceX launches which failed their reentry trajectory burns were marked as partial success."
Huh? I agree on your categorizing of A6, but SpaceX has only 1 partial failure: F9 flight 4 (where a payload could not be deployed due to dV loss from a first stage engine failure).
Similar event, but not a reentry burn. Redacted II (talk) 12:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Partial success is not an option for the infobox. We can only list as success, partial failure or failure.
  2. The second stage, by design, is supposed to be capable of being ignited four times. It failed to achieve that.
RickyCourtney (talk) 15:35, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not a failure, nor a partial failure. Is there any sources that say "it's a partial failure"? Nope.
There *is* sources that tell it's a success. The rocket actually delivered the sats. Please note that here, on Wikipedia, VV23 Vega launch is considered a "succes" and not a "partial failure", while there is multiple sats that didn't stayed in orbit. Here, the situation is way better, and all sources call it a success. This isn't a partial failure. Cosmiaou (talk) 22:38, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"The rocket actually delivered the sats" Not all of them.
And sources that call it a partial failure?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/09/science/europe-ariane-6-rocket-launch.html Redacted II (talk) 22:49, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The extensive discussions on IFT-3 demonstrated a consensus to distinguish launch success from mission success. Going by that standard, this launch would be classified as a success, since it successfully launched to its desired orbit, but the APU problems caused a partial failure of the mission.
That said, it appears consensus has shifted here to consider the full mission, including ability to deploy payloads. If that is the case, we may want to consider reclassifying IFT-3 on Starship to partial failure, due to the various post-SECO problems it had (including the door issue, which would've prevented payload deployment).
My point being, these classifications need to be consistent, and not holding different vehicles to different standards. There should be global consensus, not one consensus for one vehicle and another consensus for a different vehicle. Gojet-64 (talk) 02:36, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"That said, it appears consensus has shifted here to consider the full mission, including ability to deploy payloads."
This is an incorrect assessments of the arguments (or at least the arguments I've made, and seemingy the arguments of other editors here.) being made for partial failure.
The second stage failed to deliver all of the payloads to the desired trajectory. This is identical to Falcon 9 Flight 4.
IFT-3, on the other hand, delivered the "payload" to the correct trajectory.
Launch ends when the payload is deployed. For IFT-3, that was SECO. For A6, that would have been after the deorbit burn. Redacted II (talk) 02:48, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Launch ends when the payload is deployed."
Can't say I agree with that interpretation.
I'm also not sure that these classifications can ever be perfectly consistent, there's always going to be a level of necessary subjective analysis.
In this case, the Vinci engine is supposed to be capable of burning for at least 900 seconds over four burns (in ground tests ran for over 1,500 seconds and made up to 20 burns), but it failed to achieve that. Demonstrating engine restart is a critical objective because those capabilities are necessary for delivering multiple payloads to different orbits (which Ariane 6 is supposed to be able to do). Taking that into consideration, this clearly a partial failure. RickyCourtney (talk) 03:23, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which again comes back to the SpaceX craft failing to open its cargo doors which was a mission test objective, it wasnt carrying payloads but if it would have been unable to deploy them hence under this logic it was a failure. WatcherZero (talk) 03:51, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Launch ends when the payload is deployed." This was the consensus opinion for the IFT-3 RfC.
"it wasnt carrying payloads but if it would have been unable to deploy them hence under this logic it was a failure"
No payloads failed to deploy, so no. But this is off-topic. Redacted II (talk) 11:45, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Partial failure. I wonder if the undeployed payloads had insurance? (I'm asking because that shows what the customer expectations were -- if you think I'm breaking a rule then you should consider using my talk page, or just not mentioning it.) Greg (talk) 18:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This in violation of WP:Forum, so I'll keep it brief:
SpaceCase SC-X01 was designed by ArianeGroup, so they likely don't. Not sure on Nyx Bikini. Redacted II (talk) 20:13, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment/Stay on topic This is the Ariane 6 talk page. This is not the proper venue for the discussion of SpaceX missions, no matter how tangentially related. If you wish to discuss those issues, might I suggest the talk pages for those missions/vehicles or more broadly on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight. -- RickyCourtney (talk) 03:29, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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