European Spaceflight has learned from the European Space Agency that a contract awarded to ArianeGroup in 2021 for the development of an Ariane 6 kick stage will be adapted to cover its evolution into an orbital transfer vehicle.
ESA awarded ArianeGroup’s German subsidiary the €90 million contract in July 2021 to develop the ASTRIS kick stage as part of the Ariane 6 Competitiveness Improvement Programme. The optional kick stage was intended to enhance the Ariane 6 launch system’s flexibility by enabling deployment of payloads into multiple orbits or direct injection into geostationary orbit. At the time the initial contract was awarded, the first Ariane 6 flight with an ASTRIS kick stage was expected to take place in 2024.
According to ESA’s director of Space Transportation, Toni Tolker-Nielsen, under the existing contract, the first flight of the ASTRIS kick stage had been expected to take place in 2027. However, following decisions made at the agency’s Ministerial Council meeting (CM25) in Bremen last month, the approach has changed to move directly to the development of an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV), the performance of which, according to Tolker-Nielsen, will be “well beyond” that of the originally conceived kick stage.
Approximately €100 million was committed to the evolution of ASTRIS at CM25, with “very strong support from Germany,” explained Tolker-Nielsen. He added that the funding was sufficient for all activities necessary to develop the OTV.
Under the new timeline, a protoflight mode of the OTV is expected to be ready for ground qualification by the end of 2028, with an inaugural flight following in 2029.
While ArianeGroup has not yet made any public announcements about the contract adaptation, the company announced on 16 December that it would present its ASTRALIS carrier spacecraft at the European Commission’s In-Space Operations and Services (ISOS) Strategic Forum in Munich. ArianeGroup describes ASTRALIS as an “efficient logistics spacecraft for a future European in-space operations system” that will provide “advanced transport and refuelling capabilities for missions to space, in space, and back to Earth.” The announcement also reveals that the project is based on the ASTRIS kick stage. Taken together, this appears to point to ASTRALIS as the orbital transfer vehicle envisioned under the revised ESA contract, though ArianeGroup has not formally confirmed the link.
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