ESA and CNES Sign
Assistance Contracts for Ariane
(22 June 2007) On Tuesday at the Paris
Air Show in Le Bourget, ESA and the French National Space Agency (Centre
National d'Études Spatiales - CNES) signed two contracts covering the
provision of assistance to ESA by CNES for parts of the Ariane launcher
programme.
The new organisation of the European launcher sector,
decided at the ESA Ministerial Conference in 2003, implied changes for the
Ariane Programme in both the industrial and institutional areas.
For the
industrial part of the programme, Astrium Space Transportation became the sole
Prime Contractor for both development and production of Ariane launch
vehicles.
The institutional part of the programme changed with the
introduction of direct ESA management of all new ESA-funded Ariane programmes
while making use of the existing knowledge and experience within CNES. Prior to
this change, ESA delegated the management of the Ariane Programme to
CNES.
These decisions were further consolidated at the Paris Air Show
with the signature of contracts for assistance covering the Ariane
Consolidation and Evolution Programme and the Ariane Accompaniment Program. The
contracts run until the end of 2010.
The contracts were signed by ESA's
Director of Launcher Programmes, Antonio Fabrizi, and Lionel Ravet of the CNES
Ariane Development Directorate on behalf of Michel Eymard, CNES Director of
Launchers.
The new managerial arrangements are already in place. At the
signing, Antonio Fabrizi remarked "We have actually been implementing this new
management scheme for the last two years, starting with Slice 10 of the Ariane
Development Programme, without any serious teething problems."
(source:
ESA)