THE NEW SPACE RACE: Increase in Ariane 6 launch cadence could take several years.

During a panel at the Paris Air Show June 17, David Cavaillolès, chief executive of Arianespace, emphasized his desire to ramp up launches of the Ariane 6, which has performed two launches to date.

“We need to go to 10 launches per year for Ariane 6 as soon as possible,” he said. “It’s twice as more as for Ariane 5, so it’s a big industrial change.”

After the inaugural launch of Ariane 6 last July, Arianespace launched the second Ariane 6 in March, placing a French reconnaissance satellite into orbit. Cavaillolès reiterated earlier plans to conduct four more Ariane 6 launches through the end of the year, including the first launch of the more powerful Ariane 64 variant with four solid-rocket boosters.

However, he declined to offer a specific timeline for increasing launch cadence to 10 per year. “Everybody is extremely motivated, but we want to do it step by step,” he said. “First we have to deliver on ’25 and this is a big challenge, so we focus on that.”

First maybe they need to find customers willing to pay about three times more than SpaceX charges per kilogram to orbit.