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ferrel_hadley t1_ixdf4hk wrote

Europe is still mentally competing with ULA, its industry (other than OneWeb) is still built around communications being single large geostationary satellites. It is paying for a decade of laboured, unimaginative responses to an industry that was moving from statist to more free market orientated.

There will be numerous component manufacturers who will have an active future in space. But until they realise it is not a new generation of rockets, but a paradigm shift in how space is being commercialised, they will be flat footed and atrophying.

Its not 2005 anymore.

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CurtisLeow t1_ixefu7g wrote

It's debatable how "European" OneWeb is. A majority of the company is owned by Asian companies. The satellites are built in Florida. Then the satellites are launching on American and Indian rockets moving forward.

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toodroot t1_ixegy0e wrote

Eutelsat is merging with OneWeb and will have 50% of the combined company.

Also the American and Indian rockets are only completing the first generation constellation. It is not expected that future generations will also launch on the same rockets.

Also that Florida factory is a 50/50 partnership between OneWeb and Airbus.

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CurtisLeow t1_ixej3tn wrote

There’s definite European involvement. But it might be more accurate to call the company a multinational company, given that a majority of the workforce and a majority of the owners aren’t in Europe. Essentially the company is based in Europe for tax purposes. Maybe after the merger you can call it European.

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ataraxo t1_ixenhmv wrote

The original company (WorldVu) was registered in Jersey (obviously for tax purposes) and for a long time the headquarters were in Arlington, VA.

But they moved to London (that was initially home to the backup operation center and some employees) after the bankruptcy when the UK government invested in the company.

I think a majority of the workforce is now in London. Whether UK is part of Europe or not is up for debate (not part of EU/ESA anymore, on an island...)

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Resigningeye t1_ixgfnl4 wrote

UK is still part of ESA and reasonibly well integrated with the European space sector.

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toodroot t1_ixeov5x wrote

After meeting a guy who wanted to argue to the death that Russian-built rockets launched from Russian-built launch pads in Russian territory were European, I decided to stop worrying about that label.

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toodroot t1_ixdob8t wrote

SES, a Luxembourgish-French company, owns Greg Wyler's pre-OneWeb constellation, O3b, which is in medium earth orbit.

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ataraxo t1_ixelyqr wrote

And SES is about to launch the new generation of satellites O3b mPOWER that are built by Boeing and launched by SpaceX. The first generation was built buy Thales Alenia Space and launched on Soyuz operated by Arianespace. So they are moving away from the European space industry.

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Arcosim t1_ixensjg wrote

Europe needs to go fully ahead with the development of the SUSIE spacecraft, one of the best reusable space vehicle concepts currently out there.

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toodroot t1_ixer797 wrote

Susie launches on top of A64, so it expends the whole rocket other than Susie.

How would you compare it to Dream Chaser? Which is no longer a concept, I suppose.

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