So far, the only countries in the world capable of manned spaceflight are China, the United States and Russia, of which China and Russia manned spaceflight are implemented by national forces, while United States has been dominated by private space companies.
For example, in recent years, most of the manned spaceflight to and from the International Space Station in United States has been completed by Musk's Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft, and Boeing's Starship is also going to join it, but the start is not good, and the spacecraft has not returned after arriving at the space station.
In addition to China, the United States and Russia, India has also developed manned spaceflight in recent years, but so far its manned spacecraft has not been put into orbit, let alone sent astronauts into space, according to its existing plan, it will carry out three unmanned spacecraft tests of the Gaganyan spacecraft next year, and carry out manned test flights the year after.
The European Space Agency is also an important force in the global space community, but it has not made much action in manned spaceflight, but according to news from European Space News on July 19, ESA has signed a contract with Ariane Space to explore the use of Ariane 6 rocket to carry out manned flight and launch spacecraft program, which indicates that ESA is also engaged in manned space activities.
The Ariane 6 rocket made its first test flight on July 9 this year, launching from the Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana with a number of microsatellites and two small return capsules, but the launch was not a complete success due to a failure of the second stage rocket after start-up and the failure of several of its spacecraft to enter orbit.
But this does not prevent ESA's pursuit of manned spaceflight, the first flight of the Ariane 5 rocket was not as good as Ariane 6, but it did not delay it to become an excellent launch vehicle, and ESA also wanted to develop the Ariane 6 rocket as a manned rocket.
ESA's head of space transport, Tolker-Nielsen, has said that Ariane 6 will also be upgraded to meet the safety standards required for manned launches, and that a manned spacecraft powered escape system will be developed to ensure that astronauts can escape safely in the event of a failed launch.
ESA represents the space power and level of the whole of Europe. In fact, as early as 2021, ESA Director Aschbach said at the International Astronautical Congress that year that Europe would develop manned space capabilities, and the launch vehicle it would use was the Ariane 6 rocket, which has a near-earth capacity of 21.65 tons and a geosynchronous transfer orbit capacity of 11.5 tons, far exceeding the Long March-2F rocket on the mainland and close to the capacity of the Long March 5 rocket. Therefore, as long as its manned safety is improved, it can be used to launch manned spacecraft.
At present, Europe wants to develop manned spaceflight, the most needed is manned spacecraft, Europe is still blank in this regard, but Europe has developed and put into service ATV cargo spacecraft, on the basis of this spacecraft to improve, it is not difficult to build a manned spacecraft!
ESA already has the capability to develop a space station module, and its Columbus module continues to play an important role on the ISS today, indicating that ESA also has experience in maintaining long-term in-orbit operations of the space station.
In addition, ESA has space tracking and control stations in many places in the world, which has a global tracking and control capability second only to United States, and can also escort its manned space activities.
Therefore, ESA has many inherent advantages in manned spaceflight, and the difficulties are not very great, but manned spaceflight is a systematic project, and it is not easy to completely do it, and ESA also needs to show determination and invest sufficient funds and technology, within ten years, the plan may be realized, but India's manned spaceflight is faster, has gone ahead of Europe, and will be realized earlier before it.
Source: "The Paper" reported on July 21 that "ESA explores the manned program of Ariane 6 rocket"