/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15141249
The Heavy variant had better lifting capacity to GEO than any variant of the Ariane 5 that ever flew. If it could launch for less than $180 million a flight it might have been able to claim a segment of the market. The Med might have been competitive against the middleweight varieties of Atlas V and Delta IV. It would have come down to cost in the end, but it wouldn't have have Atlas V's versatility with it's dial-a-rocket SRB variations. The Light wouldn't have seen much business but could have a viable competitor for the Minotaur-C and Athena II for the small number of launches that those saw.

If they'd actually proposed this, they might have had a chance of winning, but this wasn't what they actually proposed. The LCLS-L/M/H was something that came about immediately after the EELV contest. What they proposed the first time was something in line with THIS: three vehicles built around SRMU derivatives with the heavy being a pair of Titan boosters attached to an imported Ariane 5 core with an undefined American upper stage.