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Feature story

CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall: Tempo and quality are keys to Arianespace's success

February 21, 2007

Arianespace has focused the company's full resources on providing launch services that are consistent, reliable and stable in order to support the needs of satellite manufacturers and telecommunications operators worldwide.

Arianespace is further increasing the Ariane 5’s production and mission rates to step up the company’s launch tempo.

This was the primary message of Arianespace CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall during a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. at the Satellite 2007 conference - which has become a key annual gathering of industry executives and decision-makers.

"We give the satellite industry what it wants the most today - which is confidence in the launch services that it acquires," Le Gall said. "This is our main goal at Arianespace, and it is something that we work very hard to maintain."

Such confidence, Le Gall added, comes with a company that offers on-time, accurate launches over the long term, and which brings an open approach in its dealings with customers.

Arianespace achieves this goal with its three-pronged approach, described by Le Gall as:

• Mastering the techniques: The proven Ariane 5 heavy-lift vehicle and the Soyuz medium-class launcher have become industry benchmarks that demonstrate their maturity and reliability year-after-year. This was underscored by the impressive five Ariane 5 dual-payload missions performed by Arianespace in 2006, along with two Soyuz flights conducted by its Starsem affiliate.
  
  
• Maintaining the launch tempo: Arianespace and its industrial team have put all of the elements in place to further boost Ariane 5 production, with six missions targeted in 2007, seven flights in 2008, and a stabilized rate of eight vehicles annually from 2009. With Ariane 5's dual-satellite lift capability, the pace of eight launches per year will provide approximately 16 payload slots annually.
  
  
• Offering an easy and transparent service which is backed by an open approach in the company's relationship with customers: The result of this policy was underscored by the 12 new launch Service & Solutions contracts that Arianespace signed last year. Business is brisk again in 2007, with two new additional orders already inked in January and February.

Contributing to this strategy is Arianespace's policy of building standardized heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA, which ensures repeatability in the manufacture and operations of high-quality launchers. He added that Arianespace is preparing to order a new quality batch of 20 to 40 launchers from its industrial team, ensuring a consistent, stable source of Ariane 5s over the long term.

"In addition, Arianespace avoids overbooking," Le Gall said. "This means that we don't sign contracts for what we can't launch - and we launch what payloads we sign," Le Gall said.