The European Space Agency is studying the implications of the potential creation of a single satellite prime contractor for Europe, according to the agency’s director general, Jean-Jacques Dordain.
Three weeks ago, Dordain set up a task force to examine the consequences for ESA of the restructuring of the European satellite industry.
In July 2005 Alcatel Space and Alenia Spazio were merged to create Alcatel Alenia Space. Now Thales is expected to exchange Alcatel’s 67% share in Alcatel Alenia Space and its 33% stake in Telespazio for shares and cash. The resulting entity could be named Thales Alenia Space. If Thales were to purchase EADS’s satellite arm Astrium, the subsequent Thales/Alenia/Astrium entity would become the single European prime.
ESA’s task force will provide a report to the agency’s industrial policy committee (IPC) in September, ahead of an IPC council meeting in October. “I have a difficulty with this phrase [the media has used], ‘Airbus of satellites’,” says Dordain. “Competition is one of our rules for industrial policy. We are talking to industry before we submit a report to the October council.”
The agency’s guiding rules for procurement are geographic return and encouraging competition. Analysts at the trade association Aerospace and Defence Industries of Europe see competition being kept alive by companies such as the UK’s Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and Germany’s OHB-System. Although they are considered small companies, SSTL successfully delivered the Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element-A spacecraft to ESA and OHB-System won the German Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement contract to produce five Synthetic Aperture Radar-Lupe reconnaissance satellites.
Source: Flight International