Elaboration of Ariane 6 operational concept with a concurrent engineering approach

In December 2014, the ESA Council at Ministerial level has decided to go ahead with the Ariane 6 and Vega-C development programmes. The overarching aim of Ariane 6 is to provide guaranteed access to space for Europe at a competitive price. ESA has the role of Procuring entity and Launch System Architect (LSA). As Launch System Architect, ESA ensures the coherence on the Launcher System and the Launch base in the elaboration of the operational concept. The ambitious High Level Requirements of Ariane 6 Project lead to design the Launch System for efficient operations. In this frame, operations are taken “end-to-end”: • From manufacturing until end of Launch Service, • All over the lifecycle of the Launch System, • Encompassing the Launcher System & Launch Base & across the whole Launch System • Including the Launch Service Customer’s / payload The operational concept describes how the Launch System will be operated all over the Ariane 6 lifecycle. This approach leads to drive the Launch System design, development, initial operations and ramp-up up to full operational capability. Given the short development time for Ariane 6 (decision to start development in dec-2014 for a maiden flight in 2020), it has been decided to follow a concurrent engineering approach between ESA acting as Launch System Architect and the two prime contractors (ASL and CNES) in the elaboration of the Operational Concept. The joint teams iteratively evaluate alternative solutions until convergence on the targeted recurring cost induced by the operational concept. At each step, impact on the Launch Base requirements and their running costs (operations and maintenance) are evaluated. Interface requirements are kept updated and design elements are capitalized to reduce the slack between requirements finalization and preliminary design completion. This process allows the system to freeze in parallel the requirement, the process and product design. The paper presents concurrent engineering methods and tools applied within Ariane 6 project related to the elaboration of the operational concept with the prime contractors. Then the outcome is summarized by presenting the A6 operational concept