Vega: Will Avio and Arianespace divorce?
The French newspaper La Tribune relaunches rumors about the divorce between Arianespace and Avio, the Italian manufacturer of the Vega family launchers. All the details in view of the Space Summit in Seville scheduled for 6 and 7 November.
Star wars in sight between Paris and Rome on the marketing of Vega, the European light launcher designed and produced by the Italian Avio?
This is the hypothesis that the French newspaper La Tribune relaunches, after a year, in view of the Space Summit in Seville scheduled for 6 and 7 November. According to the French press, last year the then Draghi government had asked to take Vega out of Arianespace's orbit, in a letter addressed to the European Space Agency (ESA).
Arianespace is the company controlled by the Franco-German giant ArianeGroup which manages the European launchers Vega (produced by Avio) and Ariane (made by Arianegroup). Therefore, through Arianspace, France has an exclusive right to market Vega, but with ArianeGroup it has launched the Maia project which can be in direct competition.
In fact, in 2021 Paris shocked our country by announcing the development of Maia, a small reusable launcher designed by the Franco-German giant ArianeGroup.
In the end, after the ESA ministerial last November, last March Italy and France signed a new agreement to strengthen cooperation in space . French Minister Le Maire had underlined the importance of "guaranteeing the success of Ariane 6 and getting Vega C to fly again".
But now, according to the Tribune, the Italian government has made an official request to remove the Vega launchers from Arianespace's orbit. Contacted by the newspaper, Avio replied that "it had no information on the subject".
All the details.
RANZO'S STRATEGY
According to the French newspaper, the break between France and Avio seems definitive.
Even if the CEO of Avio, "Giulio Ranzo, would like to stay at the Guyana Space Center to launch Vega-C, and then certainly Vega E (+ 20% performance)", according to La Tribune, which recalls how it is "a Giulio Ranzo's dream of flying on his own commercially since the end of the 2010s for reasons of strategic autonomy".
In this regard, the newspaper also recalls that Giulio Ranzo is simultaneously CEO of Avio and major shareholder of In Orbit.
As stated on the website of the Colleferro company, Avio's capital is divided into 26,359,346 shares without par value. In addition to Leonardo (which holds almost 30% of the capital), Avio is also owned by the investment vehicle founded and made up entirely by managers, "InOrbit", with approximately 4% of the capital. ( To find out more here, Startmag 's in-depth analysis Why the Democratic Party sends a torpedo to Avio and Ranzo ).
A COMPLICATED MOMENT FOR VEGA C
However, this new initiative comes at a difficult time for Vega C, the updated version of the European Vega launcher made by Avio in the Italian factories of Colleferro.
In fact, ESA has established that Vega C will return to flight in the fourth quarter of 2024, following the conclusion of the work of the Independent Investigation Commission (IEC) established by the Agency to examine the anomaly that occurred during the test of the Zefiro 40 engine of Vega-C last June 28th.
The launcher was left stuck on the launch pad following the failure of Vega C's first commercial flight on December 20th. The failure dealt a major blow to European efforts to maintain launch autonomy . The Vega C was one of the cornerstones of that strategy, together with the Ariane 6 still awaiting its debut date.
IT IS A DELICATE MOMENT FOR ACCESS TO EUROPE'S SPACE
“Italy's decision is clearly not a good decision for European space launchers, which are increasingly becoming a ruined field in terms of cooperation,” notes La Tribune .
In this regard, the French newspaper recalls that “Avio and ArianeGroup will still have to maintain collaboration on the P120C boosters that equip both Vega C and Ariane 6. As part of the rationalization of the industrial model of the Ariane and Vega launchers, the two manufacturers each produce part of its boosters, containing 142 tons of solid propellant at takeoff from the two launchers".
As already mentioned, Avio is currently also working on Vega E, the latest evolution of the Vega launcher. But will the future mini reusable Maia launcher compete directly with the Avio launcher? According to what Il Sole 24 Ore reported last year, Palazzo Chigi's request "to directly involve Italian industry also in the Maia project with the prospect of developing an alternative to Elon Musk's Falcon" had failed.
So the more the logic of cooperation seems to give way to competition in the family of European launchers. Yet this is not the case according to La Tribune which underlines how Arianespace has "always played the game for Avio by winning satellites for Vega then for Vega-C, whose launch book is full (17 launches planned) while the family of Italian launchers is going through a extremely complicated period."
WHAT THE COPASIR REPORT SAID (CHAIRED AT THE TIME BY URSO, TODAY MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR SPACE)
Thus, the entire launch vehicle industry depends on the position of the Italian government, whether to confirm Vega's withdrawal or not.
Last year, precisely in this period, the Draghi executive was replaced by the Meloni government and the ball on space issues passed to Adolfo Urso, Minister of Business and Made in Italy with responsibility for space.
Urso himself also took care of space as president of Copasir, signing a long report in July 2022 . Our country can maintain that level of excellence that has characterized it since the dawn of the so-called 'space race'. But according to Copasir "this positioning is today threatened by the growing activism of British and German companies, alongside the historic competition with French partners, in the sector of access to space which has seen up to now, with the Vega launcher, our country protagonist in this segment of the value chain of space activities".
In the space access segment, represented by launchers, Italy boasts an excellent positioning with the different versions of Avio Spa's Vega launcher, Copasir underlined last year. British and especially German companies, also supported by partial support from the ESA, "are rapidly acquiring capabilities such as to constitute a formidable competitor for companies in our country in this specific market context" added the Committee. And again regarding the Vega launcher, Copasir recalled that "the improvements expected by our industry have caused political reactions in Paris which fears potential competition with the Ariane in promising market segments such as small satellite constellations".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/vega-avio-e-arianespace-divorzieranno/ on Mon, 30 Oct 2023 07:49:22 +0000.