ALEXANDER CAMPBELL / LONDON
Company makes EADS single prime contractor, landing 50% of 2003 launcher contracts
Arianespace hauled itself back into profit in 2003 after two years of losses, says chief executive Jean-Yves Le Gall, thanks to rising sales and a streamlined supplier base. Detailed results will be released in June.
Arianespace took more than 50% of the still-depressed launcher market in terms of available orders in 2003 and will do so again in 2004, he says, landing at least 10 of the 20 contracts expected this year. The company has cut the cost of its Ariane 5 launchers by moving to one prime contractor - EADS- and saw revenues rise as the market for satellite launches picked up.
Arianespace forecasts five or six Ariane launches - all Ariane 5s - in 2004, compared with four, including the last Ariane 4, in 2003. The fifth planned Ariane launch in December of the Israeli Amos 2 communications satellite was switched to a Starsem Soyuz/Fregat launcher to avoid slipping further in the launch schedule, after the failure of the first Ariane 5 ECA launcher. The ECA will return to service "in mid-2004",Arianespace says.
Despite the upturn, Arianespace says, business is "unlikely to return to the heady levels of several years ago", with new satellite markets such as high-speed internet and high-definition television unlikely to appear before 2006, and the 30 Galileo navigation satellites not due for deployment before 2008.
Source: Flight International
