Editing Europa (rocket) (section)

==Development==
===Background===
During the early 1950s, the British government had identified the need to develop its own series of [[ballistic missile]]s due to advances being made in this field, particularly by the [[Soviet Union]] and the United States.<ref name = "hill 249">Hill 2001, p. 249.</ref> A British programme to develop such a missile, named [[Blue Streak (missile)|Blue Streak]], was promptly initiated; however, there were key questions over the then-relatively unknown scenario of what such a vehicle would encounter when attempting [[atmospheric entry|re-entry]] to the atmosphere, there were fears that such a vehicle might simply burn up like a meteor and therefore be unachievable.<ref name = "hill 249"/><ref>Laycock and Laycock 2005, pp. 51-52.</ref> Accordingly, during 1955, the [[Black Knight (rocket)|Black Knight]] research rocket programme was commenced for this purpose.<ref name = "hill 22">Hill 2001, p. 22.</ref><ref>Massie and Robins 1986, p. 226.</ref> Following several launches, the Black Knight came to be regarded as a successful programme, having produced a relatively low cost and reliable rocket, and thus there was impetus present to proceed with further development of the platform.<ref name = "hill 188">Hill 2001, p. 188.</ref>

On 13 April 1960, the [[Secretary of State for Defence|Defence Minister]] [[Harold Watkinson]] announced the cancellation of Blue Streak as a military programme, and went on to state that: "the Government will now consider with the firms and other interests concerned, as a matter of urgency, whether the Blue Streak programme could be adapted for the development of a launcher for space satellites."<ref name="Hansard">{{cite journal | url= https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1960/apr/13/long-range-ballistic-missile-blue-streak#S5CV0621P0_19600413_HOC_208 |title= Long-Range Ballistic Missile (Blue Streak) |journal= Hansard |date= April 1960}}</ref><ref name="hill 13"/> While development of the Blue Streak missile continued with the view of using it as a capable satellite launcher, the rate of work was substantially slowed. Aerospace author C.N. Hill wrote that this declaration had been made: "Mainly, I suspect, to minimise the political damage that ensued from the [Blue Streak] decision".<ref name="hill 13">Hill 2001, p. 13.</ref>

In 1957, a proposed design, known as [[Black Prince (rocket)|Black Prince]], was put forward by [[Desmond King-Hele]] and [[Doreen Gilmour]] of the [[Royal Aircraft Establishment]] (RAE) during 1957.<ref name="Harvey 38">Harvey 2003, p. 38.</ref> As envisioned by this proposal, an [[expendable launch system]] could be developed using a mix of preexisting and in-development assets; the multi-stage launcher was to be formed of a Blue Streak first stage, a [[Black Knight (rocket)|Black Knight]] (or later a [[Black Arrow (rocket)|Black Arrow]]) second stage, and a military solid rocket as a third stage.<ref name="britain in space">{{cite web | url=http://www.britain-in-space.co.uk/1950/blackprince.html | title=Black Prince Project | work=Britain in Space | access-date=27 April 2012 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120318141852/http://www.britain-in-space.co.uk/1950/blackprince.html | archive-date=18 March 2012 }}</ref>

In 1960, the [[Royal Aircraft Establishment]] at Farnborough was given the job of considering how the Blue Streak missile could be adapted as a satellite launching vehicle, in conjunction with other rocket stages. Accordingly, the 1957 concept design for a combined Blue Streak-Black Knight launcher was put forward once again, and this time received a favourable appraisal; the project was assigned the [[rainbow code]] of ''Black Prince''; in official documentation, the platform was referred to as the ''Blue Streak Satellite Launch Vehicle'' (BSSLV).<ref name="hill 125 126">Hill 2001, pp. 125-126.</ref> However, it was quickly recognised that the programme's cost would be a major issue, one estimate of the total development costs would have been equal to half of the British [[university]] budget.<ref name="hill 13 14">Hill 2001, pp. 13-14.</ref>

Along with the high costs involved, it was becoming clear that, due to British military satellites already being delivered by American launchers and the domestic science community being perceived as lacking the funding to conduct multiple major research satellite programmes at once, domestic demand for such a launcher was not guaranteed. Accordingly, it was decided that it would be preferable for other nations to be involved in the programme in order to share the burden of the costs and to be predisposed to making use of the launcher.<ref name="hill 14">Hill 2001, p. 14.</ref> Diplomatic approaches were made to various nations, however it became obvious that the members of the [[Commonwealth of Nations]] alone were not prepared to provide the necessary backing for such a programme.<ref name="hill 135">Hill 2001, p. 135.</ref>

===Collaboration===
As early as 1961, [[Peter Thorneycroft, Baron Thorneycroft|Peter Thorneycroft]], the Minister of Aviation, had been thinking about a joint European project, in order not to waste the advanced development of the Blue Streak, and not to leave space exploration to the Americans and Russians. Britain made diplomatic approaches to various European nations: the most significant of these was to France.<ref name="hill 14"/> Overtures between the [[British government]] and the [[French government]] on potential cooperation on missile research, and specifically on the potential use of the Blue Streak as early as 1957.<ref name="hill 135"/> Britain and France agreed to serve as the lead nations on the envisioned programme, but recognised that other partner nations would be necessary.<ref name="hill 136">Hill 2001, p. 136.</ref>

Both France and Britain approached various other nations to join on the collaborative programme, however negotiations with interested nations were often protracted, in part due to scepticism; author C.N. Hill stated that "many countries thought that the U.K. was seeking to foist an obsolescent launch vehicle on them, and making them pay the costs".<ref name="hill 136 137">Hill 2001, pp. 136-137.</ref> The participation of many nations hinged upon gaining the endorsement of Germany, which was eventually won over and chose to participate.<ref name="hill 137 139">Hill 2001, pp. 137-139.</ref> As a result of this diplomacy, it was decided to proceed with the formation of the [[European Launcher Development Organisation]] (ELDO) group.<ref name="hill 137 140">Hill 2001, pp. 130, 139-140.</ref>

The headquarters of ELDO were in [[Paris]]. The founding members were Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands and West Germany: Australia, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden had chosen not to participate.<ref name="hill 239 140">Hill 2001, pp. 139-140.</ref> ELDO not only served the purpose of harnessing Blue Streak, but also fulfilled ambitions to produce a European rival to the American and Soviet launchers being developed and deployed at that time.<ref name="hill 135"/> In response to the rise of the ELDO initiative, work on the competing Black Prince launcher gradually came to a halt as attention from the British government drifted towards European collaboration.<ref name="hill 130">Hill 2001, p. 130.</ref>

After studying various designs and concepts, ELDO arrived at a three-stage approach which was given the designation ''Eldo A''; this was later formally named as ''Europa''.<ref name="hill 141">Hill 2001, p. 141.</ref> According to Hill, Black Prince and Europa were comparable launchers, capable of delivering similar performance and roughly the same payloads; the overlap left little room for both programmes. However, there was criticisms that Europa would take longer to deliver than the Black Prince launcher for no significant improvement, while suffering from the same core economic problem of being too expensive for scientific satellites while too small for commercial communications satellites.<ref name="hill 141 143">Hill 2001, pp. 141-143.</ref>

In January 1965, the French thought the initial three-stage rocket design would not be sufficiently advanced to carry the size of payloads required, while another rocket – referred to as ''Eldo B'' – which featured liquid [[hydrogen]]-fuelled second and third stages, came to be viewed as a superior design, partly due to reduce the cost of the project by eliminating transition test launchers. It would still use the Blue Streak as the first stage. The ELDO later disagreed, but the French would ultimately get their way when Eldo B became the foundation for the later [[Ariane 1|Ariane]] launcher, which first launched in 1979.

===Rising costs and restructuring===
By April 1966, the project's estimated costs had increased to £150 million from an initial estimate of £70 million. By this point, hopes amongst several of the participants were not high that Europa would be suitable for the envisioned task; the Italians wanted to abandon the ELDO and instead participate in a single European space organisation that would not be as nationally divided as the ELDO. The first launch had been originally planned for November 1966; however, the first two-stage launch occurred in August 1967, while the full three stages (Europa 1) performed its first combined launch in November 1968.

During the mid-1960s, Britain had been contributing 40 per cent of the programme's costs. In early June 1966, the British government ([[Fred Mulley]]) decided it could not afford the cost of Europa and sought to leave the ELDO organisation – one of the few European organisations by which point it had become a lead player. Britain's contribution was reduced to 27 per cent. This was also at a time when satellite technology was on the verge of changing the world. However, the soon-to-be-common [[geosynchronous satellite]]s necessitated being positioned at an altitude of 22,000 miles (35 400&nbsp;km) above Earth, which was far beyond the performance of Europa 1, being capable of launching satellites to a {{convert|125|mi|km}} altitude.

In November 1968, a European Space Conference held in Bonn decided on a proposal to merge the ELDO with the [[ESRO]], forming a pan-European space authority by early 1970; known as the [[European Space Agency]] (ESA), this organisation would not be formed until 1975. Britain was lukewarm to the idea and did not believe that Europe could launch satellites economically. By 1970, the French launch base in [[French Guiana]] had cost £45 million, and in that year France became the most important partner in the project, then planning to build two-thirds of the rocket as well as owning the launch site. Although only on paper, Britain's involvement in the project has been much reduced, after being largely responsible (with an Australian launch site) for getting the entire project going in the first place. However, all of the launchers, to the very end of the programme, were completely dependent on the British rocket used for the first stage.

By 1970, the project was under a perceived economic threat from America's offer to fly satellites for foreign powers on a reimbursable basis. That agreement had been signed between ESRO and NASA on 30 December 1966 and by 1970 it was becoming clear that the advantage in having a national launch vehicle was insufficient to justify the cost. In 1972, NASA approved development of the reusable [[Space Shuttle]], which at that time was largely perceived to eventually offer greater savings over the launching of satellites using an expendable system. These hopes the Shuttle delivering lower costs would ultimately prove to be hollow. By 1971, over £250 million had been spent on the Europa programme; the Europa 2 itself cost over £4 million.

On 27 April 1973, Europa was abandoned.<ref name="hill 13 14">Hill 2001, pp. 13-14.</ref> On 21 September 1973, the legal agreement for the L3S, which later became known as the [[Ariane 1]], was signed. Under this agreement, the Europa III was formally cancelled, while the L3S would be developed as a multinational project. From the onset, this new launcher was to be developed for the purpose of sending [[Commercial use of space#Satellites and equipment|commercial satellites]] into [[geosynchronous orbit]], unlike many other competing launchers, which had been typically developed for other purposes and subsequently adapted, such as [[ballistic missile]]s.<ref name = "harvey 161 166">Harvey 2003, pp. 161, 166.</ref>

===Division of labour===
[[File:Blue Streak Engine Test.jpg|thumb|right|Test site at [[RAF Spadeadam]] in [[Cumbria]] ]]
Workshare on the programme was a politically charged matter. Tasks were to be distributed between nations: the United Kingdom would provide the first stage (derived from the [[Blue Streak missile]]), France would build the second and Germany would construct the third stage.<ref name="ley196406">{{Cite magazine
 |last=Ley
 |first=Willy
 |date=June 1964
 |title=Anyone Else for Space?
 |department=For Your Information
 |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v22n05_1964-06_modified#page/n69/mode/2up
 |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction
 |pages=110–128
}}</ref><ref name="hill 141"/> It would carry a satellite, which would be designed and manufactured in Italy, and weighted roughly a ton. The [[telemetry]] was to be developed by the Netherlands, while Belgium was to develop the downrange ground guidance system.<ref name="hill 141"/>

By 1969, the ELDO was beginning to realize that dividing work up by country led to not enough overall collaboration and had resulted in a disjointed framework of planning. This disjointed structure has been accredited as having been responsible for the lack of successful launch. In effect, there had been no single authority or group that was entirely responsible or in control of Europa. Notably, in November 1971, the West Germans publicly blamed the failure and explosion of Europa 2 upon immense divisions within ELDO.

===Programme stages===
[[File:Europa rocket rear.jpg|thumb|right|Europa 2 rocket]]
The Europa programme was divided into 4 separate projects intended to follow each other in succession. Ultimately, only two of these projects would have any launches conducted, the third project being cancelled while the fourth remained a case study only:

* '''Europa 1''': 4 unsuccessful launches
* '''Europa 2''': 1 unsuccessful launch
* '''Europa 3''': Cancelled before any launch occurred
* '''Europa 4''': Study only, later cancelled