Elon Musk Does he know Vernon, in Normandy? This town of 25,000 inhabitants located in Eure is not yet as famous as Boca Chica Villagein Texas. It is there, on the east coast of the United States, that the famous SpaceX rockets. But back to Vernon.
MaiaSpace has set up its factory in Vernon
It is in the Normandy forest that the French group MaiaSpace enters the decisive phase of the development of the first reusable European rocket. Its first shot is planned for 2026. The objective is to try to catch up a decade behind Elon Musk.
MaiaSpace is not yet as famous as SpaceX. The company started two years ago with 20 employees, today there are 230 of 14 different nationalities, more than half of whom come from the non-space sector. The company also employs approximately30%“women, a rate higher than that of women graduates from engineering schools, and employees of all ages. With this diversity, MaiaSpace hopes”avoid beginner mistakes“while adopting development logic”different“, underlines Yohann Leroy, executive president of MaiaSpace.
MaiaSpace subsidiary of ArianeGroup
MaiaSpace is a subsidiary ofArianeGroup. MaiaSpace says “autonomous” because financed by loans from Airbus and Safranshareholders of its parent company. This allows it in particular to be “freed from the constraint of geographical return“established by the European Space Agency to ensure fair distribution of industrial contracts and economic benefits between the different Member States participating in the financing of space projects.
“Europe has fallen behind because the reuse technologies that are mastered across the Atlantic are not yet mastered here“, Yohann Leroy told AFP.
“However, the battle is not lost“, he adds in front of an installation where mechanical tests of separation of the stages of thethe Maia rocket in Vernon80 kilometers west of Paris.
MaiaSpace develops technology close to SpaceX
This is the first stage of this rocket intended to place institutional and commercial satellites in orbit and developed by MaiaSpace which is the main reusable element. It is designed to return to a barge at sea after launch, using technology similar to that used by SpaceX d’Elon Musk since 2015 with the Falcon 9, which currently carries out several launches per week.
MaiaSpace is banking on around twenty Maia shots per year around 2031-2032, a difference in scale which does not discourage Yohann Leroy who must also compete with other major players like Rocket Lab or Relativity Space. China also has reusable launchers.
“The launchers that SpaceX is developing do not meet all needs“, especially when it comes to sending a heavy satellite to a specific orbit, he argues. Unlike SpaceX whose satellites in the Starlink constellation represent the majority of the order book, which justifies the frequency of launches,
The first flight of the Maia rocket will take place in Kourou
“MaiaSpace does not have the ambition to develop its own constellation project“, he also explains. Nevertheless, by making access to space commonplace and lowering its cost, the American billionaire has disrupted the satellite market and pushed Europe to question on its spatial development model based on public financing.
In 2014, when the development of Ariane 6 was launched, the ArianeGroup launcher capable of carrying heavier loads than Maia and which successfully completed its flight
inaugural in July, Europe considered the economic model of reuse to be unviable.
Powered by ArianeGroup’s Prometheus engine which runs on a mixture of liquid oxygen and bio-methane, more environmentally friendly than kerosene, Maia’s first stage could be reused up to five times compared to at least ten for SpaceX.
Initially planned for the end of 2025, Maia’s first flight was postponed after the allocation to the French group in September of the Russian Soyuz launch pad at Kourouin French Guiana, whose launches were halted after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
MaiaSpace is preparing to adapt this launch pad for its needs while conducting tests in Vernon.
