Arianespace clocks 30 years and looks forward
It's a truism that people don't really appreciate just how important space is to their daily lives.
They hear about the ISS (International Space Station) and the space shuttle, and they think that's it.
They don't dwell on the multitude of satellites that provide their TV, telephone and internet requirements; and they don't think about the timing and location data from GPS which goes way beyond their car dashboard and underpins a range of services from banking to smart agriculture.
Jean-Yves Le Gall, the boss of Arianespace, tells a lovely story about the US politician who queried the necessity of launching new Earth-observation satellites:
"A few years ago there was the question in the US of a budget to replace meteorological satellites. And obviously this budget was very big. And a very high-ranking politician, when this budget request was presented, asked 'but why do you want to launch so many satellites when every night on the TV you can see the weather report'?"
Like that politician, many don't think of the constellation of spacecraft that provide their weather forecasts. Space is "under the skin".
Mr Le Gall was in London on Wednesday to deliver a lecture celebrating the 30th anniversary of Arianespace (it was created on the 26 March 1980).
Mr Le Gall delivered his talk at the Royal Aeronautical Society.
Let me just back up a moment for those who don't know about Arianespace - this is the company that operates Europe's rocket, the Ariane 5, from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
The way things work in Europe is that the European Space Agency (Esa) develops a technology and then another organisation commercialises, or operates, it.
So, for example, the satellites that provide the data for our weather forecasts are developed by Esa but then operated by Eumetsat.
Likewise, Europe's rockets - the Ariane series - are developed by Esa but commercialised by the Evry (Paris)-based Arianespace company.
Again, it's one of those little recognised facts but more than half of the commercial satellites in operation today were launched by Arianespace and its stable of rockets.
This is not a dream story, however. Go back to December 2002 and the company was in deep trouble.
Financially, Arianespace was on its uppers. The member-states of Esa and the EADS aerospace giant had to step in and recapitalise the business, and re-organise the procurement and management of European launcher services.
Seven years on and Arianespace is now the dominant force in the launcher business. The Ariane 5 has since flown 35 unblemished missions, and the company is about to introduce two new rockets to its French Guiana operation.
One is a small Italian-developed rocket called Vega; the other is the established Russian Soyuz vehicle.
The latter development is particularly fascinating.
Europe has funded a purpose-built launch pad for the Soyuz in the South American jungle. Its maiden flight is currently scheduled for late August. And if I can wear my British spectacles for a moment, it will be a key moment for the UK because the payload on that maiden Soyuz will be an innovative British-built broadband-dedicated satellite called Hylas.
But back to Mr Le Gall. His RAeS lecture gave a fine summary of the company's history over the past three decades; but the audience was most keen to learn about his views on the future.
This correspondent wanted his observations on the Next Generation Launcher (NGL), sometimes referred to as "Ariane 6". Discussions in Europe have already begun on what sort of rocket might succeed the Ariane 5. What did he think it might be like?
"To get a perfectly working vehicle, you need between 15 and 20 years. And so today, Ariane 5 is perfect; but it is time to think about the launch vehicle which will be here in 2025.
"Globally, we can say the idea for Ariane 6 probably is to have the capability to better adapt to the size of satellites than Ariane 5... to have the capability to address satellites from three tonnes to six tonnes, and with, also, a better economic rationale, because of course access into space is quite expensive.
"An Ariane 5 launch is roughly 150-160m euros, and if we could reduce this cost, this would be very helpful to develop space applications."
My predecessor, the BBC's esteemed former aerospace correspondent Reg Turnill, wanted to know if there was any possibility that the Ariane 5 might be modified to make it suitable to launch astronauts - to "man-rate" the vehicle. Mr Le Gall's answer:
"There are no plans to man-rate Ariane 5 in the predictable future. We will see if the European member-states of Esa want to take this decision, but honestly when you see the very difficult budgetary situation of countries in Europe, I doubt they will want to enter into this process."
And Richard Peckham, the chairman of UK Space, the umbrella body for the UK space industry, raised an issue that many who've corresponded on this blog have discussed: did Mr Le Gall ever envisage a totally re-usable launch vehicle coming into service?
"The US has developed a partly re-usable vehicle in the shuttle. Today, with the existing technology, the re-usable vehicle is much more expensive than the expendable rocket.
"I do not say that in the future we will not have a technology breakthrough to allow a re-usable vehicle that is more affordable, but today I do not see such projects."
The next few years are going to be challenging for Arianespace.
I've spoken previously on this blog about the imminent arrival of the American Falcon-9 rocket and its promise to substantially undercut the price tag of an Ariane 5.
The Russian Proton rocket will soon mimic the Ariane 5 by launching two satellites at once, thus reducing its cost to orbit. And there is also the prospect - however unlikely - of the Americans relaxing trade rules which would allow satellites with US components to ride Chinese rockets to orbit.
In other words, the competition is about to get a whole lot tougher.
Watch this space.
I’m 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~44~RS~)
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Le Gall's response to the question about competition was quite interesting, but he overlooked (deliberately or otherwise) the upcoming threat from the Indians.
The GSLV Mk2 is a pretty effective Ariane 4 clone and the soon-to-be launched GSLV Mk3 will compete for business at the lower end of Ariane 5's range. It won't be subject to the same US restrictions as the Chinese launchers are. This is the dark horse candidate from the next generation of global launchers.
It's also interesting that he claimed Ariane 5's run of 35 consecutive successful launches was a World record. Ariane 4 had 74 consecutive successes before it was retired in 2003 (and America's Delta 2 has had a longer run, too).
The reason cited at the time for the launcher's retirement was that satellites were getting bigger and that Arianespace needed to be able to dual-launch payloads, yet in November 2003 - just 9 months after the last Ariane 4 - the agreement to bring Soyuz to Kourou was signed. Clearly there is a case for a mid-sized launcher.
It's therefore intriguing to hear that Le Gall thinks Ariane 6 should consist of a family of rockets focusing on the 3 to 6 tonne to GTO range. Isn't this exactly what the Ariane 4 family was? Might it not have been more sensible to evolve those highly successful launchers and continue to amortise their original development cost, rather than design another model from scratch - with the consequent (in his words) 18 year period to make the rocket reliable?
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@David. Mr Le Gall calls every flight a new world record. It is... for the Ariane 5. ;-) I would love also at some stage to talk to the Japanese about their H-IIb vehicle. It's very capable. Would they fancy a punt at the commercial market?
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There are a few points here .....
Might it now be the right time to write "satellite launchers are never going to be commercially viable" on a model of the Ariane 5 and insert it forcefully into UK Governments' collective backside? How blinkered were they in their short-sighted ignorance of how the launcher market would develop. Ariane (aka Blue Streak) could have been a UK success story if politicians had not been so toothless. But we won't make THAT mistake again, eh? As you say, Jon, watch this space ...
The man-rating of A5 puzzles me. Considering it was initially designed to launch the Hermes spaceplane, one would think it was already man-rated.
And HYLAS is more Indian-built than UK. The UK has provided the communications payload to the Indian Service Module and testing. A great move to forward UK space capability - give it away. The fact that the UK has been involved in space (rocket propulsion especially) since 1945 should not be allowed to prevent us developing our rivals' industry.
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The Ariane-5 may well have originally been intended to launch the Hermes, but that was cancelled along with the Man-Tended Free Flyer and the original Polar Platform (then resurrected in part as ERS/Envisat) quite early on.
Whether the man-launch requirements were descoped after the majority of the development/test activities were performed - and therefore the relevant aspects were just not validated although left in place - or before, in which case they were specifically removed (which would help with launch mass by removing redundancy, greater safety margin elements, etc) is unclear. I expect the latter, in which case an effort to man-rate the Ariane-5 would be a significant upgrade and test activity, with a considerable associated cost.
And I think it's a moot point. Arianespace, for now, are not interested in the human-launch market. This they will leave to the Falcon-9 and the other nascent projects running around the world. NASA, although still reeling from the Constellation program cancellation, will also have its own man-rated vehicle in the future. Add in Soyuz for smaller missions to LEO and you can see that there is no obvious huge demand for a new man-rated launcher. This also ignores also the several tourism-oriented concepts that could, in future evolutions, address orbital rather than sub-orbital.
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The facts are that the industries involved in the production of Ariane 5 cannot survive without further R&D 'enhanced' or 'advanced' versions of Ariane 5 funded by ESA. So there has to be a constant subsidy by ESA to even stay afloat. And to earlier comments, Ariane 5 was never man-rated from the start, this was studied as part of the Hermes programme which went out with a ... capsule named ARD, Ariane re-entry demonstrator. The last time I saw Hermes was in the Clignancourt flee-market. Finally, you have to admire the French, ESA is headquartered in Paris, the DG is French and so is the boss of Arianespace. Vive l'Europe!
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If you're interested in this, please download or listen to a recording of Me Le Galls full talk, free at http://www.aerosocietychannel.com/2010/02/arianespace-30-years-of-success/ - the Royal Aeronautical Society's official online media channel - Please feel free to add your comments while you're on the channel, and browse the other lectures and resources too.
Aero Society Channel Team
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Just think in 1960 the UK already had a Military Space programme in place with the production/assembly line for the first phase family of a joint missile, Satellite Launch Vehicle started and in production to fulfil the original fifty a year capacity for the MoS.
The Launch pads at Woomera were designed and built to take the second phase satellite launch vehicles with a maximum of 1,000,000lbf thrust. The service gantries were designed and could take the sixteen foot diameter enlarged Blue Streak vehicles that could have placed sixteen to twenty ton payload in a circular 300n.mile polar LEO.
The Woomera air liquefaction plant was already constructed and was required to produce up to 36,000ton of LOX annually.
Four UK companies had developed and tested spacesuits for the programme and were so advanced that they directly influenced the American Apollo Moon suits.
The UK and Australia had already invested so much in creating the facilities and hardware that it was stated at the time of cancellation that it only needed the equivalent expenditure annually to that spent on November 5th fireworks in the same period to have had a fully fledged ongoing space programme
When this investment was thrown away key UK rocket scientists helped get Ariane started and tens of thousands of British workers ended up on the dole!
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Le Gall's response to the question about competition was quite interesting, but he overlooked (deliberately or otherwise) the upcoming threat from the Indians.
The GSLV Mk2 is a pretty effective Ariane 4 clone and the soon-to-be launched GSLV Mk3 will compete for business at the lower end of Ariane 5's range. It won't be subject to the same US restrictions as the Chinese launchers are. This is the dark horse candidate from the next generation of global launchers.
It's also interesting that he claimed Ariane 5's run of 35 consecutive successful launches was a World record. Ariane 4 had 74 consecutive successes before it was retired in 2003 (and America's Delta 2 has had a longer run, too).
The reason cited at the time for the launcher's retirement was that satellites were getting bigger and that Arianespace needed to be able to dual-launch payloads, yet in November 2003 - just 9 months after the last Ariane 4 - the agreement to bring Soyuz to Kourou was signed. Clearly there is a case for a mid-sized launcher.
It's therefore intriguing to hear that Le Gall thinks Ariane 6 should consist of a family of rockets focusing on the 3 to 6 tonne to GTO range. Isn't this exactly what the Ariane 4 family was? Might it not have been more sensible to evolve those highly successful launchers and continue to amortise their original development cost, rather than design another model from scratch - with the consequent (in his words) 18 year period to make the rocket reliable?
Best regards, Yuriy, CEO of youtube downloader
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