Ariane 6 dropped for SpaceX

Europe’s weather satellite operator has canceled plans to use the European rocket Ariane 6 less than two weeks before its first-ever launch, opting to go with US firm SpaceX instead, the French newspaper Le Monde has reported.

The latest blow to European space efforts comes after four years of delays to the Ariane 6, which is scheduled to finally blast off for the first time on 9 July.

Contacted by AFP on Friday, the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) could not immediately be reached, while the French company Arianespace, which developed and operates the Ariane 6 rocket, did not comment.

According to the Le Monde report, EUMETSAT’s executive committee asked the board of directors representing the organization’s 30 member states to launch the MTG-S1 weather satellite on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

That would mean canceling the contract EUMETSAT signed with Arianespace four years ago.

The MTG-S1 satellite had been planned to be the third launch on an Ariane 6 rocket, scheduled to blast off sometime early next year.

The Le Monde report did not specify exactly why EUMETSAT ditched the European rocket for US billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The CEO of France’s CNES space agency Philippe Baptiste said it was “quite a brutal change as the flight was supposed to take place very soon.”

“Clearly, today is a very disappointing day for European space efforts,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post.