Centre européen pour la construction de lanceurs d'engins spatiaux
Arianespace is a multinational company and a leading commercial launch service provider, marketing and operating launch vehicles like Ariane 5, Soyuz, and Vega, and the upcoming Ariane 6. As a subsidiary of ArianeGroup, it plays a crucial role in providing independent access to space, particularly for European organizations and governments. Arianespace launches missions from the Guiana Space Centre and works with partners like the European Space Agency (ESA) and Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES). Key activities include preparing missions, managing customer relations, and offering a wide range of space-based applications, including telecommunications, science, navigation, and Earth observation.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
Arianespace will launch the Metop-C weather satellite on its Europeanized Soyuz from the Guiana Space Center on the schedule set prior to the Russian crewed Soyuz mission.
The Soyuz variant used by Arianespace incorporates a larger fairing, a new digital telemetry system, and engine modifications necessary for launching in high humidity.
Arianespace stated on 2018-10-11 that it is too soon to determine whether Soyuz-ST rockets used to launch satellites from South America will be grounded following the Soyuz-FG failure.
Four additional Arianespace customers with Soyuz missions scheduled 2018 or next include OneWeb, OneWeb’s base in the Channel Islands, SES of Luxembourg, the Italian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency.
Arianespace continued preparations on 2018-10-11 at Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana for a planned November Soyuz-ST launch carrying a European weather satellite despite the Soyuz booster failure earlier that day.
Arianespace has been launching Soyuz rockets from the Guiana Space Centre since 2011.
Arianespace operates Soyuz vehicles from the Guiana Space Centre alongside European Ariane 5 and Vega rockets.
LeoSat’s constellation design can fit eight satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 or an Arianespace Ariane 6 rocket under the current configuration.
OneWeb purchased 21 Soyuz missions from Arianespace to carry between 690 and 720 satellites to low Earth orbit.
Arianespace-operated Soyuz launches previously supported medium Earth orbit missions for the European Commission’s Galileo navigation satellites and SES’s O3b telecom fleet.
In the prior year, Arianespace used Soyuz for two missions to geostationary transfer orbit.
Arianespace will serve the small-satellite and LEO constellation market with its Vega small satellite launch vehicle and Ariane 6.
Viasat chose United Launch Alliance over SpaceX and Arianespace for the ViaSat-3 Atlas 5 launch.
Arianespace completed the 100th launch of a heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket on 2018-09-25.
Arianespace’s next mission after 2018-09-25 was an Ariane 5 launch of BepiColombo, a Mercury-bound spacecraft for the European and Japanese space agencies, scheduled for 2018-10-19.
The 2018-09-25 launch was the 300th launch of an Arianespace-operated rocket.
The contract tasks Arianespace with a December 2021 launch of the Kompsat-7 Earth observation satellite built by KARI.
Arianespace signed a contract with the Korean Aerospace Research Institute for a Vega C mission on 2018-09-20.
Al Yah 3 launched in January on an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket and provides coverage in Africa and Latin America.
Stéphane Israël, CEO of Arianespace, remarked that the GEO market's softness significantly affects his company's reliance on commercial GEO business.