On: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its...

[nordsieck]

> Not to mention the quite cheap flight-proven Indian rockets & a whole bunch of traditional + private Chinese companies, some actively trying to clone Falcon 9 or even Starship.

It seems like most of the world has decided not to fly on Chinese rockets, so those aren't really competition.

But I totally agree with regard to India: PSLV and GSLV are both good, competitive rockets. It'd kind of a shame that they don't launch more often. It makes me wonder if there's some sort of organizational dysfunction going on. It does sound like they're going to be launching OneWeb going forward, though, which is nice.

[igravious → nordsieck]

> It seems like most of the world has decided not to fly on Chinese rockets, so those aren't really competition.

The Chinese market is so large that this does not matter: https://payloadspace.com/2023-orbital-launches-by-country/

India's space program/industry, though significant, is much smaller than China's. SpaceX makes up 90% of USA's launches at present.

    US: 109.
    China: 67.
    Russia: 19.
    Europe: 3.
    Other: 25.