Europe's Ariane Falls Farther Behind SpaceX
Space launch company SpaceX launched its first rocket in March 2006 -- an expendable "Falcon 1" rocket that failed to even reach Earth orbit. It only took the company six years, though, to both fix its design and begin sending rockets to orbit with regularity, and decide that the real future of rockets -- and the key to making rocket launch affordable -- was in making them reusable.
In September 2012, SpaceX inaugurated its reusable rocket program with a test launch of the "Grasshopper", the vehicle that would eventually evolve into the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship programs.
Throughout all that time, SpaceX's primary competitors in space launch, America's United Launch Alliance (a 50-50 joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin) and Europe's Arianespace (a 50-50 JV of Airbus (OTC: EADSY) and Safran (OTC: SAFRY)), have continued flying expendable rockets that are each discarded after one use. But nearly a decade after Grasshopper made its first hop, Ariane, at least, has decided that it's time to develop a reusable rocket of its own.
Source Fool.com
