About Arianespace

Latest milestones

• May 7, 2013
  Vega’s second flight from French Guiana marks the start-up of mission operations under Arianespace responsibility for this light-lift launcher. A trio of satellites, including Vega’s first commercial payload, are orbited during the successful mission.
• April 18, 2013
  Stéphane Israël is appointed Chairman & CEO of Arianespace, succeeding Jean-Yves Le Gall – who led the company since 2001 and earlier in April 2013 was named President of French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales).
• March 18, 2013
  Arianespace announces a three-satellite launch services contract for Intelsat, with the spacecraft to be orbited through 2017 by Ariane 5 vehicles from the Spaceport. The deal covers the 52nd, 53rd and 54th payloads that Arianespace will orbit for this leading provider of satellite services, continuing a nearly 33-year partnership.

Service & Solutions

Arianespace at a glance

Arianespace was founded in 1980 as the world’s first commercial satellite launch company. Its shareholders include the French space agency CNES, Astrium and all European space companies, representing 10 European countries.

As of January 1, 2013, the company had 315 employees, located at its corporate headquarters in Evry, France; at the Guiana Space Center (the Spaceport) in French Guiana, the launch site for Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega: and at local offices in Washington D.C., Singapore and Tokyo.

In operations from the Spaceport during 2012, seven launches of Ariane 5, two Soyuz launches, and one launch of Vega generated a turnover of 1,320 M€, an increase of more than 30 percent compared to 2011, with balanced accounts.

Since its creation, Arianespace has signed contracts with 81 customers worldwide, carrying out 212 Ariane launches, 30 Soyuz launches (four at the Spaceport and 26 at Baikonur Cosmodrome via its Starsem subsidiary), and the first two launches of Vega. More than half of the commercial satellites in service today were launched by Arianespace.

Operations

Arianespace provides launch services to commercial satellite operators and government space agencies around the globe based on a complete family of launchers:

• The Ariane 5 heavy-lift launch vehicle (68 launches to date, including 54 successful missions in a row).
• The Soyuz medium-size launcher (Four consecutive successful launches); Soyuz also is operated at Baikonur Cosmodrome with Starsem (26 commercial launches, all successful).
• The Vega lightweight launcher (Two successful launches).

Capitalizing on its complete family of launchers with proven reliability and availability, Arianespace wins more than half of the commercial launch contracts open to competition worldwide each year.

Arianespace’s healthy order book (as of May 10, 2013) has contracts with 24 different customers, equal to more than three years of business:

• 21 Ariane 5 launches for 33 satellites to be placed into geostationary transfer orbit on 16 dual launches and 4 dedicated launches.
• 11 Soyuz launches.
• 3 Vega launches.

Planned in 2013 are up to six launches of Ariane 5 (including the first one already performed), up to four launches of Soyuz at CSG (in addition to one Soyuz launch at Baikonur Cosmodrome already performed) and one launch of Vega, already performed.
Based on impressive launch performance and a large backlog of orders, Arianespace is the world’s leading launch company, capturing much more than 50 percent of the commercial satellite launch market year after year.

Corporate governance

Arianespace’s shareholders are represented by the Board of Directors. Stéphane Israël is Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Louis Laurent is Senior Vice President, Programs, Jean Max Puech is Senior Vice President, Finance and Jacques Breton is Senior Vice President, Sales & Customers.

• Cliquez ici pour consulter la carte d’identité en français (35 Kb. PDF)