Because it’s controlled by a lunatic
Comment on Europe Reluctantly Chooses SpaceX to Launch Its GPS Satellites
silencioso@lemmy.world 11 months ago
In 20 years the Europeans have expend 10 billion of taxpayer money to send to orbit only 26 satellites (almost 400 milion each). A SpaceX falcon 9 can send to orbit almost 20 Galileo satellites at once for 62 milion. So the question is WTF they have not used spaceX before.
GyozaPower@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world 11 months ago
ESA has its own launch capability x and is choosing SpaceX anyway. The lunatic thing must not be a big deal.
LinuxSBC@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Ariane 5 is retired. Ariane 6 isn’t ready yet. Vega is small. What medium-lift launch capacity do they have?
silencioso@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Ariane 6 is already obsolete.
Toine@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
The launch costs of Galileo satellites were much cheaper than 400 millions per satellite. The budget you mention covers the global development, deployment and continuous operation of the project.
silencioso@lemmy.world 11 months ago
They used ariane 5 rockets to send 2 satellites at a price tag of 150-200 million. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#:~:text=Total la…
Compare that with the price of a Falcon 9.
Toine@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Except they launched them 4 at a time on Ariane 5 (which has similar capacity as falcon, so doubtful they would launch much more at a time with space, also it was available at the time of the start of the project…), and two at a time on the cheaper Soyouz. Also, it’s way better to pay even 200 million (more likely less than 150 millions) to domestic companies to boost your own economy than to pay 70 million to your number one competitor…
barsoap@lemm.ee 11 months ago
SpaceX is still overall bleeding money, kept afloat by more suckers buying into it as well as the US government overpaying for launches.
LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch 11 months ago
Because the goal of the government isn’t to turn a profit. Ideally, government funded needs should be used to create jobs in the country or region that government is in charge of.
If everyone switched to SpaceX for their launches, then they’d be handing a monopoly to Elon, and nobody wants that. Instead they need to be funding their own space program and drive down the costs to be competitive with SpaceX so they can be self sufficient.
It’s a problem that they need to use SpaceX right now, for several reasons.