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Arianespace: 4 new launch contracts

September 8, 2014

By Chris Forrester

Arianespace told the Euroconsult Satellite Business Week in Paris it had won four new contracts to be launched on its Ariane 5 ECA rocket. Arianespace also has another two potential contracts in the pipeline.

These four take the total contracts won this year to 11.

The new contracts cover launch orders from:

  • Intelsat (Intelsat 36)
  • Sky Perfect JSAT (JCSat-15)
  • Korea Telekom (KoreaSat-7)
  • Avanti Communications (Hylas-4)

In a statement, Arianespace said: “All of these launch contracts are for smaller geostationary satellites (from 3,300 to 3,500 kg at launch), which will be placed in the lower position for Ariane 5 dual launches into geostationary orbit, enabling Arianespace to balance its launch manifest with the heavier satellites already in the order book, which are placed in the upper position for these launches. Arianespace has already announced the launch contracts for Brisat with BRI, and with Eutelsat for the Eutelsat 172B, an “all-electric” satellite. Since the beginning of the year, including government orders, Arianespace has signed a total of 11 launch contracts. If the two contract negotiations now under way are successfully completed, Arianespace will have signed 13 contracts since the beginning of the year.”

This latest quartet of orders takes the Ariane contracted backlog to more than €4.5 billion, and represents 60 percent of the commercial launch market.

Categories: Articles, DTH/Satellite