European rocket launch takes aim at SpaceX

Europe’s satellites and military intelligence have come to depend on the U.S. company after delays and malfunctions left the continent unable to get to orbit with its own rockets. Officials fear that dependence could extend to the battlefield: SpaceX’s Starlink internet service has been crucial for Ukraine to fight off Russia, fanning worries in Europe that its armies might also need Musk for satellite communications in a war.

Governments say the Ariane 6 rocket, operated by the European consortium Arianespace, will begin to change that equation. It is set to lift off from French Guiana on Tuesday, Europe’s first rocket to launch in a year.

“Clearly, we must deliver. We must restore autonomous access to space" for Europe, Stéphane Israël, chief executive of Arianespace, said in an interview.

With European rockets stuck on the ground, SpaceX stepped in to fill the void. Its Falcon 9 rocket has launched all of Europe’s most important satellites over the past year, including two that were supposed to be handled by Arianespace.

The most recent blow came last month when Europe’s weather-satellite agency canceled a contract to launch next year with Ariane 6 and hired SpaceX instead. The decision left European space officials crestfallen, with the head of the French space agency saying: “How far will we, Europeans, go in our naivety?"

SpaceX is the leading U.S. space company, handling important missions for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and military. American officials laud its prowess, but many say they don’t want to overly rely on any single contractor.

NASA, for example, has hired Boeing to conduct regular astronaut flights to and from the International Space Station, in addition to SpaceX. Boeing’s first such mission was launched last month after delays and has faced technical challenges.

The rise of SpaceX has upended Europe’s rocket industry and its champion, Arianespace, which used to lead the world in commercial launch services. SpaceX’s mastery of reusable rocket technology has left Arianespace struggling to compete on price and more than a decade behind with its own reusable rocket.

Arianespace’s Israël has said Ariane 6 will offer prices that are competitive with SpaceX’s current rockets and that its new, expendable vehicle offers advantages for customers.

Musk brushed aside arguments for single-use rockets in remarks to a European tech conference in May. “Any rocket that is not at least partly reusable has no competitive chance," he said.

European nations are divided on how to respond to the rise of SpaceX.

The French government is the biggest backer of Arianespace and is aiming to keep the consortium in business amid doubts in Germany that it is still worth subsidizing. French officials say they fear the continent would be happy to let SpaceX keep launching for Europe. ArianeGroup, Arianespace’s parent company, is vital to what France calls its strategic autonomy because it has a military arm that provides the rocket technology for France’s nuclear arsenal.

In a sign of its commitment to Arianespace, France has refused to use SpaceX to launch a military surveillance satellite that was supposed to lift off on the new rocket in 2021. The military is waiting to launch the satellite on the first operating flight of Ariane 6, French officials said.

By contrast, Germany has used SpaceX, even for its most sensitive military-intelligence satellites. The company launched two of those in December. SpaceX, with its reusable Falcon rockets and cheap prices, appeals to Berlin’s impulse to keep government spending in check.

Germany has also pushed European governments to hold a competition for European companies to design new launchers—and possible competitors to Arianespace. France and other countries agreed in October last year, in exchange for Berlin pledging to continue funding Arianespace for the next few years.

German officials say they prefer to use European launchers, but they also take into account price and service.

“The Germans are not committed to Ariane, they just want access to space," said Marco Fuchs, chief executive of the German satellite manufacturer OHB, which has also started its own rocket company.

European concerns about relying on SpaceX extend beyond rockets. In Ukraine, Starlink has become the backbone of Ukrainian battlefield communications. That helped spur European governments to plan their own low-Earth orbit satellite constellation to provide battlefield communications in close to real time. A consortium of European companies including Airbus, Thales and OHB is aiming to win a multibillion-euro contract with the European Union to build and operate the constellation.

Earlier this year, SpaceX executives met European lawmakers and proposed the company launch those satellites while seeking other business with Europe.

“They want to work with the Europeans, and I said, very good, but there are things that are sovereign where we can’t work together," said Christophe Grudler, a French member of the European Parliament who leads discussions on space policy. “We favor launches from Europe, except in times of extreme difficulty."

A spokesman for SpaceX didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Ariane 6 rocket that Arianespace will attempt to launch for the first time Tuesday towers nearly 200 feet tall on the launchpad and uses powerful engines and side boosters to lift off with its cargo.

It is designed to fly a range of missions, including lofting big satellites deeper into space and flights to orbits closer to Earth.

The Ariane 6 is the successor to a rocket that started flying more than 25 years ago and gained a strong following among commercial-satellite customers. By 2007, Arianespace used the older rocket, called Ariane 5, to control more than half of the market for communications and other civilian satellite launches. In 2021, Ariane 5 delivered one of NASA’s most important spacecraft—the expensive and groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope—to orbit.

The final Ariane 5 mission occurred a year ago, leaving Europe without a major rocket because the Ariane 6 was delayed by technical challenges that are common when developing new rockets.

Europe had planned to rely on Russia’s Soyuz rocket to help fill the gap, but Moscow ended space cooperation with Europe after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, SpaceX has cut into Arianespace’s market share by aggressively pitching launches to commercial-satellite companies and offering lower prices.

SpaceX also continues to draw in government customers too. Eumetsat, the European weather-satellite agency, stunned space officials in the bloc when it said last month it would shift a cutting-edge weather satellite from an Ariane 6 rocket to a SpaceX. The mission had long been planned.

A Eumetsat official said in June the group made the shift because of exceptional circumstances but didn’t otherwise explain the move. A spokeswoman for the organization declined to comment.

Nevertheless, Arianespace’s Israël said the Ariane 6 will be busy. It doesn’t have any open launch slots for a couple of years, he said. Customers include institutions in Europe and Amazon.com, which bought 18 Ariane 6 launches for its planned satellite network.

But first, Tuesday’s launch needs to go smoothly, which often isn’t the case for a rocket’s maiden flight. In 1996, the first launch of Ariane 5 exploded shortly after liftoff.

If problems emerge, French officials fear Germany might throw more business to SpaceX and pull back from Arianespace. And Europe’s access to space would still depend almost completely on Musk.

“Ariane 6 is certainly not the best product on the market today," said Hélène Huby, chief executive of the Exploration Company, a French designer of space capsules. “There is a need for more competition, and we have nothing else for the time being. So this is all the more important that it succeeds."

Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com and Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com