CNES president Philippe Baptiste has claimed that subcontractors are unnecessarily pushing up the cost of Ariane 6 by tens of millions of euros.
Baptiste made the comments during a session at the 2024 Spatial Perspectives event in Paris on 28 March, during a session examining the future of European sovereignty in space.
While giving his remarks, the CNES boss explained that “the European space industry, which is largely French, is in danger today. Our industry is not pivoting quickly enough. We must move quickly, reduce cycles, costs, otherwise we will all die.” It should be noted that the hyperbole towards the end of that statement may be exaggerated thanks to its translation from French to English.
On Ariane 6, Baptiste stated that “today, we are too expensive, including on Ariane 6. We are missing several tens of millions of euros, which we cannot find among European subcontractors.”
Subcontractors being the cause of ballooning Ariane 6 costs is an opinion echoed by others associated with the project. In late 2023, Olivier Andries, the CEO of Safran, which has a 50% stake in ArianeGroup, identified the European Space Agency’s geo-return policy as the root cause of the Ariane 6 subcontractor problem.
“The reality today is that the subcontractors have been imposed on ArianeGroup by their countries and that these partners hide behind the geographical return in order not to make any effort to be competitive.”
Andries went so far as to name Germany’s OHB, Switzerland’s Beyond Gravity, and Sweden’s GKN Aerospace as part of what he calls the “Magnificent Seven.” The Safran CEO claimed that these seven subcontractors had called for price increases of 50 to 60% in 2022, mostly under the pretext of offsetting inflation.
ArianeGroup had initially estimated that Ariane 6 flights would start at around €70 million per flight. However, with the most recently approved subsidies, it appears the real cost of each Ariane 6 flight will be well over €100 million. Neither ArianeGroup nor ESA have, however, shared any specific details on how much each variant of Ariane 6 will cost to fly.
