OrbitalHub

Credits: ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE-Service Optique CSG 2002

Arianespace accounted for 50 percent of all commercial launches to geostationary transfer orbit during 2008 and retained its strong market share, which represented 72 percent of the orders booked in 2008.

Arianespace was founded in 1980. Among its 23 shareholders are the French space agency CNES with thirty-four percent and EADS Astrium with thirty percent. With only around 300 employees, the company has generated sales of about one billion euros in 2008.

2009 will be the year of the launcher family for Arianespace, as Arianespace Chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall pointed out during the company’s New Year’s press conference in Paris. The development of the Vega launcher is being finalized, the maiden launch of the medium-lift Soyuz launcher from Kourou in French Guiana will take place this year, and more than six missions are scheduled for Ariane 5.

“As a result of our launcher family strategy, Arianespace has a sustained agility that allows us to be ever more responsive to our customers,” Le Gall told the journalists. “The agility has been demonstrated with our 28 consecutive mission successes for Ariane 5 and the 21 for Soyuz – and is underscored by launches that are on target, and on time.”

With a full range of payload lift capabilities, including Vega, Soyuz, and Ariane 5, Arianespace is able to meet the changing trends in satellite weights, orbiting everything from light weight scientific payloads to heavy telecommunication relay platforms.