French launch aggregator RIDE! has won an ESA contract to offer its services free of charge to customers interested in launching payloads aboard the maiden Ariane 6 flight in 2024.
The contract is part of the agency’s Programme for Userbase Enhancement (PUSH), which aims to provide a platform for companies that offer “groundbreaking space-related products and services.” The idea is that the agency will purchase a service, allowing the company to then offer it for free or at a discounted price to other European companies via a competition. The PUSH initiative sought proposals aligned with three main themes: satellite as a service, launch brokerage, and satellite data as a service.
RIDE! announced 13 November that it had won an ESA PUSH contract. The company has received 25 kilograms of launch capacity aboard the maiden flight of Ariane 6 to offer to its customers. The company is calling its competition “Once Upon a RIDE!” with winners receiving “end-to-end launch management for one or multiple payloads.”
The form factors that are allowed to compete for one of up to six spots are 1U, 2U, 3U, and 6U cubesats. Interested parties have, according to the RIDE! dashboard, 18 days left to submit a proposal.
As part of its dashboard listing offering the capacity aboard the maiden flight of Ariane 6, RIDE! has the mission being launched in the third quarter of 2024. This is a more specific timeframe than ESA itself has yet revealed. The agency has stated that once a long-duration hot fire test scheduled for later this month is completed, it will share a more specific timeframe for the flight.
