France in Space #233
** 1: SPACE COULD LEAD EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
” It is very important that space be recognized at the highest political
levels, and that it be included explicitly in the next European treaty. ”
said Jean-Luc Dehaene, former Belgium Prime Minister at the opening of the
Green Paper Conference held in Brussels on March 6th, 2003. The European
Treaty of the Union constitutes a binding legal framework, setting the
boundaries within which the European Union establishes and implements its
policies. “We would like to bring space out from behind the more global
Science Policy where it is currently hidden”, says Deheane, also
Vice-Chairman of the European Convention, the body in charged to draft the
next Constitutional Treaty. “This would reflect the true importance of
space, which I believe we are all coming to recognize. “There are several
reasons for including space in the future Treaty. First, space is, by its
very nature, extra-territorial and, as such, it calls for human resources
and financial support that go beyond purely national constraints. In
addition, space represents, unique opportunities for the development of a
broad range of highly beneficial civil and public services, including
environmental monitoring, navigation and observation services as well as
defense and security related services. A pan-European political framework
for space activities would help to focus and rationalize Europe’s space
activities, providing a common vision and a common set of rules.
[European Commission Press Release 03/24/2003 Spaceref.com 03/22/03]
** 2: TURNING POINT FOR GALILEO
Omnipresent and practically invisible, the global positioning system (GPS)
is used everywhere in Iraq. Nobody questions the Galileo’s strategic and
business benefits and its funding is sealed. However, European countries
have not agreed upon the task distribution yet. Actually, the schedule is
tight. For this navigation system, 30 satellites should be launched by 2008.
The problem is that the first satellite must be commissioned by the end of
2004 in order to secure the frequency assigned to Galileo’s operations. The
European Space Agency (ESA) is trying to find a solution to the delay that
irritates France and the UK in particular. ESA suggests that the four
leading countries (Italy, Germany, France, and the UK) should each provide
17.5% of the funds, the remainder being funded by the Agency’s eleven
remaining member states. The stakes are high since the European Union is
entirely dependent upon the US system. The European Commission has urged ESA
to find a quick settlement. Lately, Germany and Italy have tackled several
issues. After a long dispute, it has been decided that the headquarters of
the Galileo consortium that manages the industrial portion of the program,
will be in Germany and the consortium’s manager will be German. Italians
will manage the engineering portion of the program. Manuel Gordillo, a
Spanish citizen, will be executive manager of the steering committee.
Astrium will represent the British and German interests in the program while
Alcatel will represent the French interest. The project’s overall amount
will be 3.4 billion Euros.
[Les Echos 03/24-26/2003 La Tribune 03/25/2003 Le Figaro 03/26/2003 European
Commission 03/20/2003]
** 3: ROSETTA MISSION STATUS REPORT
Of the nine mission scenarios studied by the Rosetta Science Working Team,
three have survived were presented to the delegations of the ESA Member
States through the Science Program Committee at its meeting on 25/26
February. Two mission scenarios (in February 2004 and 2005 respectively)
would take Rosetta to a new target comet, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, while
another (in January 2004) would take it to its original target, Comet
Wirtanen. A campaign of observations using both the NASA/ESA Hubble Space
Telescope and the instruments of the European Southern
Observatory is under way to study Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In this way,
astronomers will be able to characterize the comet and perform a mission
analysis, also to identify landing scenarios and make a thorough assessment
of any hardware modification that would be necessary. In parallel, ESA is
assessing the launch requirements for the various mission scenarios. This
will include looking at alternatives to Ariane as back-up options, such as
the Russian Proton rocket. The ESA Science Program Committee will make the
final decision on Rosetta’s new mission scenario in May.
[ESA Press Release 03/20/2003]
** 4: FIAT AVIO ABOUT TO FALL UNDER US CONTROL
Despite months of talks, Snecma removed its bid to take over Fiat Avio, a
subsidiary of Fiat. Snecma’s CEO justified the decision by detailing the
uncertainties that have undermined the Italian group. The current business
slump has affected every business unit of the engine manufacturer. Its
commercial activities suffer from the crisis in the airline industry.
Germany has cut its order of Tigre helicopters. Orders of Eurofighters may
also be reduced. The marine business unit of the engine manufacturer (5% of
sales) is not involved in any of the major programs such as the
French-Italian multi-mission frigates. Also, Fiat Avio has been hit by the
crisis in the European space industry as a shareholder (6%) and
subcontractor of Arianespace. Given serious differences between France and
Italy regarding the war in Iraq, the Berlusconi cabinet could appreciate the
new alliance between Finmeccanica and the Carlyle fund, Georges Bush Senior
being a partner in this fund. Finmeccanica could leverage Carlyle’s support
in its negotiations with BAE Systems with a view to boost its military
electronics business unit. This could be very instructive about the future
of the EU-US relations in the defense industry. An alliance with Carlyle
would signal Italy’s political switch from Europe to the US.
{Les Echos 03/26/2003 La Tribune 03/21/2003]
** 5: SPACE & SECURITY CONFERENCE REPORT
On the 22nd and 23rd of April, 2002, a conference on “space and security”
was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Faculty Club in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. This conference was co-organized by the MIT
Security Studies Program and the MIT-France program under the leadership of
the Mission for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in the USA. The
purpose of the event was to gather government, industry and academia to
discuss the current security applications of space, both in the USA and in
France, and opportunities to leverage space to increase international
security through transatlantic cooperation. The rich and open discussions at
the sessions were strong indicators of the conference’s success and
timeliness. So too was the participation of very well qualified speakers,
including both the Ambassador of France and Dr. James Roche, Secretary of
the U.S. Air Force. We are honored to provide you with the final report,
which summarizes realistically and objectively the outcome of this original
meeting in Cambridge. We believe more work is necessary in this strategic
domain, and we invite our potential counterparts to take the lead in
ensuring the continuity of this initiative, perhaps in Europe. You will find
the report at this address:
http://www.france-science.org/photos/1048586418_Space&SecuritREPORT_English.
pdf
[French Embassy / MIT 02/2003]
** 6: IN BRIEF
Arnaud Lagardère will succeed his father as co-chairman of EADS Board of
Directors, at Manfred Bishoff’s side. [Le Figaro 03/25/2003]
Eumetsat plans to order a fourth Meteosat second-generation spacecraft (MSG
4) from Alcatel Space, to guarantee continuous availability of satellites
services until 2015. MSG 1 was launched in August 2002. [Eumetsat Press
Release 03/25/2003]
The AMC-9 communications satellite left Alcatel Space’s Cannes plant during
the night of March 21-22 for shipment to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan. This satellite was built for the American operator SES AMERICOM,
an SES GLOBAL company. Its launch is scheduled end of April, using an ILS
Proton K Breeze-M rocket.
[Alcatel Space Press Release 03/25/2003]
SNPE (French Propellant Company) missed a critical military powder supply
contract that was sealed by South Africa with India. Following an accidental
inventory destruction, New Delhi wanted to get supply of military powder for
all its armed forces. Building the “Europe of Explosives” will be undermined
by this failure.
[La Lettre de l’Expansion 03/24/2003]
[From Alcatel Space Press Release, ESA Press Release, Eumetsat Press
Release, European Commission Press Release, French Embassy / MIT, Les Echos,
Le Figaro, La Lettre de l’Expansion, La Tribune, Spaceref.com]
