​It’s no secret that the European aerospace industry is not as big as the American one, both for economic and political reasons, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t European start-ups aiming to get bigger or closer to sending satellites into orbit in the future with the help of European missile carriers.

Europe currently only has two orbital missiles at its disposal, and I don’t mean families of missiles. It is one of two Arianespace Ariane 5 rockets slated for the latest launches in the family: the JUICE probe headed for Jupiter this spring and a set of telecommunications satellites to be launched this summer.

After these two launches, Europe will await the debut of the next rocket in the Arianespace family, Ariane 6, scheduled for later this year, during which no large-caliber rockets will be assembled for launch. In the aerospace industry, when a new vehicle is scheduled for the end of the year, it means that no one would be surprised if the debut actually happens next year, so it is very likely that Ariane 6 will debut sometime in 2024.

Arianespace also has the Vega-C light launcher (manufactured by the Italian company AVIO), which is currently retired and under investigation due to a failure on December 21, 2022. But the Vega family is not the only one. something that Arianespace can be proud of: of the last 8 launches of this vehicle, 3 ended in failure. What are the European alternatives to Arianespace?

Probably the closest European orbital rocket to the launch pad is RFA One, developed by the German company RFA (Rocket Factory Augsburg). It is equipped with 9 Helix engines and should have two or three stages (depending on the mission), with kerosene and liquid oxygen as fuel.

RFA One it will be able to lift 1.6 tons into low Earth orbit (3 times more than the Electron rocket can lift and similar to the Terran-1 rocket) or 450 kilograms into geostationary orbit. And the launch pad where we expect to see the rocket during its debut is likely to be located at the recently opened Esrange Space Complex in Sweden.

Isar Aerospace another German company that is preparing an orbital launch vehicle. A two-stage rocket called Spectrum is expected to debut later this year, with a slightly lower payload than RFA One: 1 ton in low-Earth orbit and 700 kilograms in heliosynchronous orbit (altitude 500 km). The Spectrum uses nine engines designed by Isar Aerospace that burn propane and liquid oxygen to lift the vehicle into orbit.

The company is at a less advanced stage than those mentioned above GiImpulse, which puts forward an interesting idea: a three-stage orbital rocket called the SL1 (Small Launcher 1), powered by… paraffin (and liquid oxygen), which can lift 500 kilograms into low Earth orbit. The HyImpulse engine is the same engine the company uses for its smaller suborbital launch vehicle.

The Spanish company is also starting with a suborbital rocket PLD space orbital adventure: Miura-1 will be tested during this period, followed by Miura-5, a two-stage rocket that will fly into orbit next year, where it will be able to launch, according to PLD Space, a 450-kilogram payload (the first stage is powered by 5 engines running on kerosene and liquid oxygen). Launches will take place from Kourou, ESA’s space center in French Guiana, and PLD Space promises that the rocket’s first stage will be lifted by parachute.

If we also look across the Channel, the UK has two companies promising orbital launches of their own in the next 2 years: Orbex and Skyrora.

Orbex is working on the 19-meter-tall, 1.45-meter-diameter Orbex Prime rocket, which will be able to lift 180 kilograms into heliosynchronous orbit using propane and liquid oxygen. The Orbex Prime will benefit from 3D-printed engines, and fuel will be derived from decomposing livestock waste, minimizing the rocket’s environmental impact. The company promises the debut of the rocket this year.

Skiror already has a portfolio of sub-orbital missiles from which I hope to build the Skyrora XL orbiter. With three stages and equipped with 9 SkyForce kerosene engines, the Skyrora XL will be able to launch 300 kilograms into a heliosynchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 km and has already signed an agreement with the future space center to be built in the north of Scotland in SaxaVord. This car is also expected to debut this year, with the possibility of it being delayed until next year.

It remains to be seen which of these rockets will survive the adverse economic environment and join giant Arianespace in offering European orbital services (European rockets launched from European territory). Companies are also at various stages of less advanced development B2Space (Great Britain, with the Colibiri missile), Latitudes (France, with Zephyr rocket), SmallSpark Space Systems (Great Britain, with the Frost-1 missile), Pangea Aerospace (Spain, with Meso launcher) or Sirius Cosmos (France, with the Sirius-1 launch vehicle).

Unfortunately, the common denominator for all the devices mentioned so far is a light caliber, that is, a small mass launched into orbit, which means that none of these launch vehicles will be able to compete with known medium or heavy-caliber rockets (Falcon 9, Ariane 6, Vulkan ). And now it is far from certain that the market for small satellites is large enough to support more than 2-3 light-caliber launch vehicles.

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