Space: Europe’s “doorway” to the missions that would be launched with Russian Soyuz – Elon Musk’s SpaceX will take over

The European Space Agency (ESA) has definitively chosen the American company Elon Musk’s SpaceX to replace the Russian space agency Roscosmos in two major mission launches in the 2023-24 biennium. The two missions involve the new European space telescope Euclid, which will study dark matter in the universe, as well as the Hera spacecraft, which will be a follow-up to NASA’s DART mission to the asteroids Gemini and Dimorphos.

The two launches will take place in 2023 and 2024, respectively, with SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, as announced by the German director general of the ESA, Josef Asbacher. The two missions were originally planned to take place with Russian Soyuz rocketsbut after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the disruption of Euro-Russian relations, ESA looked for an alternative solution, ending up with the American company.

ESA has also decided to launch in early 2024 the new European Earth observation satellite Earthcare – a member of the Copernicus program “family” – on a European Vega C rocket from the aerospace company Arianespace.

ESA also announced that Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket will make its “maiden” journey in the fourth quarter of 2023, about three years behind schedule for a first launch in 2020. The rocket was intended to compete with SpaceX. Until now Europe has used the Vega rocket for small payloads into space, the Russian Soyuz for medium payloads and the soon to be “retired” French Ariane 5 for the heaviest payloads. ESA has announced that it plans to launch its three remaining Ariane 5 rockets in the first half of 2023.

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